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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Poor Dear Mamma i 

The World Without 19 

The Tents of Kedar 37 

With any Amazement 57 

The Garden of Eden 75 

Fatima 93 

The Valley of the Shadow 115 

The Swelling of Jordan 133 


GADSBYS 


✓ 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


“The Women of Abazai are Very 

Fair/'' (See page 174.) ... Frontispiece 

Photogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

“Wonder What the Little Beast 

CAN Talk About'’ 5 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

“Don't You Know Me^ Minnie? . . . 

It's Your Husband” 118 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

“Get on^ You Sons of Burned Fathers 326 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 


GAI>SBYS 



POOR DEAR MAMMA 



POOR DEAR MAMMA 

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky, 

The deer to the wholesome wold, 

And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid. 

As it was in the days of old. 

Gypsy Song, 

Scene. — Interior of Miss Minnie Three- 
gan"s bedroom at Simla. Miss Threegan, 
in window-seat, turning over a drawerful of 
things. Miss Emma Deercourt_, bosom- 
friend, who has come to spend the day, sit- 
ting on the bed, manipulating the bodice of a 
ballroom frock and a bunch of artificial lil- 
ies of the valley. Time, 5.30 p. m. on a hot 
May afternoon. 

Miss Deercourt. And he said: '‘I shall 
never forget this dance,” and, of course, I 
said : ‘'Oh ! how can you be so silly !” Do you 
think he meant anything, dear? 

Miss Threegan. (Extracting long laven- 
der silk stocking from the rubbish.) You know 
him better than I do. 


I 


2 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


Miss D. Oh^ do be sympathetic, Minnie! 
Fm sure he does. At least I would be sure if 
he wasn’t always riding with that odious Mrs. 
Hagan. 

Miss T. I suppose so. How does one man- 
age to dance through one’s heels first? Look 
at this — isn’t it shameful? {Spreads stock- 
ing-heel on open hand for inspection . ) 

Miss D. Never mind that! You can’t mend 
it. Help me with this hateful bodice. Fve 
run the string so, and Fve run the string so, 
and I can't make the fullness come right. 
Where would you put this? (Waves lilies of 
the valley.) 

Miss T. As high up on the shoulder as pos- 
sible. 

Miss D. Am I quite tall enough? I know 
it makes May Olger look lop-sided. 

Miss T. Yes, but May hasn’t your shoul- 
ders. Hers are like a hock-bottle. 

Bearer. (Rapping at door.) Captain 
Sahib aya. 

Miss D. (Jumping up wildly, and hunting 
for body, which she has discarded, owing to 
the heat of the day.) Captain Sahib! What 
Captain Sahib? Oh, good gracious, and Fm 
only half dressed! Well, I sha’n’ bother. 

Miss T. (Calmly.) You needn’t. It isn’t 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


3 


for us. That’s Captain Gadsby. He is going 
for a ride with Mamma. He generally comes 
five days out of the seven. 

Agonized Voice. {From an inner apart- 
ment.) Minnie, run out and give Captain 
Gadsby some tea, and tell him I shall be ready 
in ten minutes ; and, O Minnie, come to me an 
instant, there's a dear girl! 

Miss T. Oh, bother! {Aloud.) Very well. 
Mamma. 

Exitj and reappears, after five minutes, 
flushed, and rubbing her Ungers. 

Miss D. You look pink. What has hap- 
pened ? 

Miss T. {In a stage whisper.) A twenty- 
four-inch waist, and she won’t let it out. 
Where are my bangles? {Rummages on the 
toilet-table, and dabs at her hair with a brush 
in the interval.) 

Miss D. Who is this Captain Gadsby? I 
don’t think I’ve met him. 

Miss T. You must have. He belongs to 
the Harrah set. I’ve danced with him, but I’ve 
never talked to him. He’s a big yellow man, 
just like a newly-hatched chicken, with an 
enormous moustache. He walks like this 
{imitates Cavalry swagger), and he goes 
''Ha — Hmmm !” deep down in his throat 


4 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


when he can’t think of anything to say. 
Mamma likes him. I don’t. 

Miss D. {Abstractedly.) Does he wax 
that moustache? 

Miss T. {Busy with powder-puff.) Yes, I 
think so. Why ? 

Miss D. {Bending over the bodice and sew- 
ing furiously.) Oh, nothing — only — 

Miss T. {Sternly.) Only what? Out with 
it, Emma. 

Miss D. Well, May Olger — she’s engaged 
to Mr. Charteris, you know — said — Promise 
you won’t repeat this? 

Miss T. Yes, I promise. What did she 
say? 

Miss D. That — that being kissed {with a 
rush) by a man who didn't wax his moustache 
was — like eating an egg without salt. 

Miss T. {At her full height, with crushing 
scorn.) May Olger is a horrid, nasty Thing, 
and you can tell her I said so. I’m glad she 
doesn’t belong to my set — I must go and feed 
this man\ Do I look presentable? 

Miss D. Yes, perfectly. Be quick and hand 
him over to your Mother, and then we can 
talk. / shall listen at the door to hear what 
you say to him. 

Miss T. ’Sure I don’t care. Tm not afraid 
of Captain Gadsby. 



Copyright, 1909, by The Edinburgh Society 




POOR DEAR MAMMA 


5 


In proof of this swings into the drawing- 
room with a mannish stride followed by 
two short steps, which produces the ef- 
fect of a restive horse entering. Misses 
Captain Gadsby^ who is sitting in the 
shadow of the window-curtain, and 
gazes round helplessly. 

Captain Gadsby. {Aside.) The filly, by 
Jove! ’Must ha’ picked up that action from 
the sire. {Aloud, rising.) Good evening. Miss 
Threegan. 

Miss T. {Conscious that she is dusking.) 
Good evening, Captain Gadsby. Mamma told 
me to say that she will be ready in a few min- 
utes. Won’t you have some tea? {Aside.) I 
hope Mamma will be quick. What am I to say 
to the creature? {Aloud and abruptly.) Milk 
and sugar? 

Capt. G. No sugar, tha-anks, and very lit- 
tle milk. Ha-Hmmm. 

Miss T. {Aside.) If he’s going to do that. 
I’m lost. I shall laugh. I know I shall I 

Capt. G. {Pulling at his moustache and 
watching it sidezvays dozvn his nose.) Ha- 
Hmmm. {Aside.) ’Wonder what the little 
beast can talk about. ’Must make a shot at it. 

Miss T. {Aside.) Oh, this is agonizing. I 
must say something. 


6 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


Both Together. Have you been — ^ 

Capt. G. I beg your pardon. You were go- 
ing to say — 

Miss T. ( Who has been watching the mous^ 
tache with awed fascination.) Won’t you have 
some eggs? 

Capt. G. {Looking bewilderedly at the tea- 
table.) Eggs! (Aside.) O Hades! She 
must have a nursery-tea at this hour. S’pose 
they’ve wiped her mouth and sent her to me 
while the Mother is getting on her duds. 
(Aloud.) No, thanks. 

Miss T. (Crimson with confusion.) Oh! 
I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t thinking of mou — 
eggs for an instant. I mean salt. Won’t you 
have some sa — sweets? (Aside.) He’ll think 
me a raving lunatic. I wish Mamma would 
come. 

Capt. G. (Aside.) It was a nursery-tea 
and she’s ashamed of it. By Jove ! She doesn’t 
look half bad when she colors up like that 
(Aloud j helping himself from the dish.) Have 
you seen those new chocolates at Peliti’s? 

Miss T. No, I made these myself. What 
are they like? 

Capt. G. These! D^-licious. (Aside.) And 
that’s a fact. 

Miss T. (Aside.) Oh, bother! he’ll think 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


7 


I’m fishing for compliments. {Aloud.) No, 
Peliti’s of course. 

Capt. G. {Enthusiastically.) Not to com- 
pare with these. How d’you make them? I 
can’t get my khansamah to understand the sim- 
plest thing beyond mutton and fowl. 

Miss T. Yes? I’m not a khansamah, you 
know. Perhaps you frighten him. You should 
never frighten a servant. He loses his head. 
It’s a very bad policy. 

Capt. G. He’s so awf’ly stupid. 

Miss T. {Folding her hands in her lap.) 
You should call him quietly and say : “O khan- 
samah jeer 

Capt. G. {Getting interested.) Yes? 
{Aside.) Fancy that little featherweight say- 
ing, '^0 khansamah jee” to my bloodthirsty 
Mir Khan! 

Miss T. Then you should explain the din- 
ner, dish by dish. 

Capt. G. But I can’t speak the vernacular. 

Miss T. {Patronizingly.) You should pass 
the Higher Standard and try. 

Capt. G. I have, but I don’t seem to be any 
the wiser. Are you ? 

Miss T. I never passed the Higher Stand- 
ard. But the khansamah is very patient with 
me. He doesn’t get angry when I talk about 


8 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


sheeps topees, or order maunds of grain when 
I mean seers. 

Capt. G. (Aside with intense indignation.) 
Fd like to see Mir Khan being rude to that 
girl! Hullo! Steady the Buffs! (Aloud.) 
And do you understand about horses, too ? 

Miss T. A little — not very much. I can’t 
doctor them, but I know what they ought to 
eat, and I am in charge of our stable. 

Capt. G. Indeed ! You might help me then. 
What ought a man to give his sais in the Hills ? 
My ruffian says eight rupees, because every- 
thing is so dear. 

Miss T. Six rupees a month, and one rupee 
Simla allowance — neither more nor less. And 
a grass-cut gets six rupees. That’s better than 
buying grass in the bazar. 

Capt. G. (Admiringly.) How do you 
know? 

Miss T. I have tried both ways. 

Capt. G. Do you ride much, then? I’ve 
never seen you on the Mall. 

Miss T. (Aside.) I haven’t passed him 
more than fifty times. (Aloud.) Nearly every 
day. 

Capt. G. By Jove ! I didn’t know that. Ha- 
Hmmm! (Pulls at his moustache and is silent 
for forty seconds. ) 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


9 


Miss T. {Desperately, and wondering what 
will happen next.) It looks beautiful. I 
shouldn’t touch it if I were you. {Aside.) It’s 
all Mamma’s fault for not coming before. I 
will be rude ! 

Capt. G. {Bronzing under the tan and 
bringing down his hand very quickly.) Eh! 
Wha-at! Oh, ves! Ha! Ha! {Laughs uneas- 
ily.) {Aside.) Well, of all the dashed cheek! 
I never had a woman say that to me yet. She 
must be a cool hand or else — Ah ! that nursery- 
tea ! 

Voice from the Unknown. Tchk! Tchk! 
Tchk! 

Capt. G. Good gracious ! What’s that ? 

Miss T. The dog, I think. {Aside.) Emma 
has been listening, and I’ll never forgive her! 

Capt. G. {Aside.) They don’t keep dogs 
here. {Aloud.) ’Didn’t sound like a dog, did 
it? 

Miss T. Then it must have been the cat. 
Let’s go into the veranda. What a lovely even- 
ing it is ! 

Steps into veranda and looks out across 
the hills into sunset. The Captain fol- 
lozvs. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Superb eyes! I won- 
der that I never noticed them before! {Aloud.) 


lO 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


There’s going to be a dance at Viceregal 
Lodge on Wednesday. Can you spare me one? 

Miss T. (Shortly.) No ! I don’t want any 
of your charity-dances. You only ask me be- 
cause Mamma told you to. I hop and I bump. 
You know I do! 

Capt. G. (Aside.) That’s true, but little 
girls shouldn’t understand these things. 
(Aloud.) No, on my word, I don’t. You 
dance beautifully. 

Miss T. Then why do you always stand out 
after half a dozen turns ? I thought officers in 
the Army didn’t tell fibs. 

Capt. G. It wasn’t a fib, believe me. I 
really do want the pleasure of a dance with 
you. 

Miss T. (Wickedly.) Why? Won’t 
Mamma dance with you any more ? 

Capt. G. (More earnestly than the neces- 
sity demands.) I wasn’t thinking of your 
Mother. (Aside.) You little vixen! 

Miss T. (Still looking out of the window.) 
Eh ? Oh, I beg your pardon. I was thinking 
of something else. 

Capt. G. (Aside.) Well! I wonder what 
she’ll say next. I’ve never known a woman 
treat me like this before. I might be — Dash it, 
I might be an Infantry subaltern! (Aloud.) 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


II 


Oh, please don’t trouble. I’m not worth think- 
ing about. Isn’t your Mother ready yet? 

Miss T. I should think so ; but promise me, 
Captain Gadsby, you won’t take poor dear 
Mamma twice round Jakko any more. It tires 
her so. 

Capt. G. She says that no exercise tires 
her. 

Miss T. Yes, but she suffers afterward. 
You don’t know what rheumatism is, and you 
oughtn’t to keep her out so late, when it gets 
chill in the evenings. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Rheumatism. I 
thought she came off her horse rather in a 
bunch. Whew! One lives and learns. {Aloud.) 
I’m sorry to hear that. She hasn’t mentioned 
it to me. 

Miss T. {Flurried.) Of course not I Poor 
dear Mamma never would. And you mustn’t 
say that I told you either. Promise me that 
you won’t. Oh, Captain Gadsby, promise me 
you won’t ! 

Capt. G. I am dumb, or — I shall be as soon 
as you’ve given me that dance, and another — 
if you can trouble yourself to think about me 
for a minute. 

Miss T. But you won’t like it one little bit. 
You’ll be awfully sorry afterward. 


12 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


Capt. G. I shall like it above all things, and 
I shall only be sorry that I didn’t get more. 
(Aside.) Now what in the world am I say- 
ing? 

Miss T. Very well. You will have only 
yourself to thank if your toes are trodden on. 
Shall we say Seven? 

Capt. G. And Eleven. (Aside.) She can’t 
be more than eight stone, but, even then, it’s an 
absurdly small foot. (Looks at his own riding 
boots.) 

Miss T. They’re beautifully shiny. I can 
almost see my face in them. 

Capt. G. I was thinking whether I should 
have to go on crutches for the rest of my life 
if you trod on my toes. 

Miss T. Very likely. Why not change 
Eleven for a square ? 

Capt. G. No, please! I want them both 
waltzes. Won’t you write them down? 

Miss T. I don’t get so many dances that I 
shall confuse them. You will be the offender. 

Capt. G. Wait and see! (Aside.) She 
doesn’t dance perfectly, perhaps, but — 

Miss T. Your tea must have got cold by 
this time. Won’t you have another cup? 

Capt. G. No, thanks. Don’t you think it’s 
pleasanter out in the veranda? (Aside.) I 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


13 


never saw Hair take that color in the sunshine 
before. {Aloud.) It’s like one of Dicksee’s 
pictures ? 

Miss T. Yes ! It’s a wonderful sunset, isn’t 
it? {Bluntly.) But what do you know about 
Dicksee’s pictures? 

Capt. G. I go home occasionally. And I 
used to know the Galleries. {Nervously.) You 
mustn’t think me only a Philistine with — a 
moustache. 

Miss T. Don’t ! Please don’t ! I’m so sorry 
for what I said then. I was horribly rude. It 
slipped out before I thought. Don’t you know 
the temptation to say frightful and shocking 
things just for the mere sake of saying them? 
I’m afraid I gave way to it. 

Capt. G. {Watching the girl as she 
Hushes. ) I think I know the feeling. It would 
be terrible if we all yielded to it, wouldn’t it? 
For instance, I might say — 

Poor Dear Mamma. {Entering, habited, 
hatted and booted.) Ah, Captain Gadsby? 
’Sorry to keep you waiting. ’Hope you have- 
n’t been bored. ’My little girl been talking to 
you ? , 

Miss T. {Aside.) I’m not sorry I spoke 
about the rheumatism. I’m not! I’m not.' I 
only wish I’d mentioned the corns too. 


14 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


Capt. G. {Aside.) What a shame! I won- 
der how old she is. It never occurred to me 
before. {Aloud.) WeVe been discussing 
‘‘Shakespeare and the musical glasses’’ in the 
veranda. 

Miss T. {Aside.) Nice man! He knows 
that quotation. He isn't a Philistine with a 
moustache. {Aloud.) Good-bye, Captain 
Gadsby. {Aside.) What a huge hand and 
what a squeeze! I don’t suppose he meant it, 
but he has driven the rings into my fingers. 

Poor Dear Mamma. Has Vermillion come 
round yet? Oh, yes! Captain Gadsby, don’t 
you think that the saddle is too far forward? 
{They pass into the front veranda.) 

Capt. G. {Aside.) How the dickens should 
I know what she prefers? She told me that 
she doted on horses. {Aloud.) I think it is. 

Miss T. {Coming out into front veranda.) 
Oh! Bad Buldoo! I must speak to him for 
this. He has taken up the curb two links, and 
Vermillion hates that. {Passes out and to 
horse's head.) 

Capt. G. Let me do it ! 

Miss T. No, Vermillion understands me. 
Don’t you, old man? {Looses curb-chain skil- 
fully, and pats horse on nose and throttle.) 
Poor Vermillion! Did they want to cut his 
chin off ? There ! 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


15 

Captain Gadsby watches the interlude 
with undisguised admiration. 

Poor Dear Mamma. {Tartly to Miss T.) 
You’ve forgotten your guest, I think, dear. 

Miss T. Good gracious ! So I have ! Good- 
bye. {Retreats indoors hastily.) 

Poor Dear Mamma. {Bunching reins in 
fingers hampered by too tight gauntlets . ) Cap- 
tain Gadsby! 

Captain Gadsby stoops and makes the 
footrest. Poor Dear Mamma blund- 
ers, halts too long, and breaks through 
it. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Can’t hold up eleven 
stone forever. It’s all your rheumatism. 
{Aloud.) Can’t imagine why I was so clumsy. 
{Aside.) Now Little Featherweight would 
have gone up like a bird. 

They ride out of the garden. The Cap- 
tain falls back. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) How that habit catches 
her under the arms ! Ugh ! 

Poor Dear Mamma. {With the worn 
smile of sixteen seasons, the worse for ex- 
change.) You’re dull this afternoon, Captain 
Gadsby. 

Capt. G. {Spurring up wearily.) Why did 
you keep me waiting so long? 

Et coetera, et coetera, et coetera. 


i6 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


(an interval of three weeks.) 

Gilded Youth. (Sitting on railings oppo- 
site Town Hall.) Hullo, Gaddy! ’Been trot- 
ting out the Gorgonzola! We all thought it 
was the Gorgon you’re mashing. 

Capt. G. (With withering emphasis.) 
You young cub! What the does it mat- 

ter to you? 

Proceeds to read Gilded Youth a lecture 
on discretion and deportment, which 
crumbles latter like a Chinese Lantern. 
Departs fuming. 

(further interval of five weeks.) 

Scene. — Exterior of New Simla Library on a 
foggy evening. Miss Threegan and Miss 
Deercourt meet among the 'rickshaws. 
Miss T. is carrying a bundle of books under 
her left arm. 

Miss D. (Level intonation.) Well? 

Miss T. (Ascending intonation.) Well? 
Miss D. (Capturing her friend's left arm, 
taking away all the books, placing books in 
'rickshaw, returning to arm, securing hand by 
third finger and investigating.) Well! You 
bad girl ! And you never told me. 


POOR DEAR MAMMA 


17 


Miss T. (Demurely.) He — he — he only 
spoke yesterday afternoon. 

Miss D. Bless you, dear! And I’m to be 
bridesmaid, aren’t I ? You know you promised 
ever so long ago. 

Miss T. Of course. I’ll tell you all about it 
to-morrow. {Gets into 'rickshaw.) O Emma! 

Miss D. {With intense interest.) Yes, 
dear? 

Miss T. {Piano.) It’s quite true — about — 
the— egg. 

Miss D. What egg? 

Miss T. {Pianissimo prestissimo.) The 
egg without the salt. {Forte.) Chalo ghar ko 
jaldi jhampani! (Go home, jhampani.) 


% 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 



THE WORLD WITHOUT 

Certain people of importance. 

Scene. — Smoking-room of the Degchi Club. 
Time, 10.30 p. m. of a stuffy night in the 
Rains. Four men dispersed in picturesque 
attitudes and easy-chairs. To these enter 
Blayne of the Irregular Moguls, in evening 
dress. 

Blayne. Phew! The Judge ought to be 
hanged in his own store-godown. Hi, khitmat- 
gar! Poor a whiskey-peg, to take the taste out 
of my mouth. 

Curtiss. {Royal Artillery.) That’s it, is 
it? What the deuce made you dine at the 
Judge’s? You know his bandohust. 

Blayne. ’Thought it couldn’t be worse than 
the Club, but I’ll swear he buys ullaged liquor 
and doctors it with gin and ink {looking round 
the room.) Is this all of you to-night? 

Doone. {P.W.D.) Anthony was called out 
at dinner. Mingle had a pain in his tummy. 

Curtiss. Miggy dies of cholera once a week 
in the Rains, and gets drunk on chlorodyne in 
21 


22 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 


between. ’Good little chap, though. Any one 
at the Judge’s, Blayne? 

Blayne. Cockley and his mensahib looking 
awfully white and fagged. ’Female girl — 
couldn’t catch the name — on her way to the 
Hills, under the Cockleys’ charge — the Judge, 
and Markyn fresh from Simla — disgustingly 
fit. 

Curtiss. Good Lord, how truly magnifi- 
cent! Was there enough ice? When I man- 
gled garbage there I got one whole lump — 
nearly as big as a walnut. What had Markyn 
to say for himself ? 

Blayne. ’Seems that every one is having a 
fairly good time up there in spite of the rain. 
By Jove, that reminds me! I know I hadn’t 
come across just for the pleasure of your soci- 
ety. News ! Great news ! Markyn told me. 

Doone. Who’s dead now? 

Blayne. No one that I know of ; but Gad- 
dy’s hooked at last! 

Dropping Chorus. How much ? The Devil ! 
Markyn was pulling your leg. Not Gaddy! 

Blayne. (Humming.) “Yea, verily, verily, 
verily! Verily, verily, I say unto thee.” Theo- 
dore, the gift o’ God ! Our Phillup ! It’s been 
given out up above. 

Mackesy. (Barrister-at-Law.) Huh! 


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23 


Women will give out anything. What does 
accused say? 

Blayne. Markyn told me that he congratu- 
lated him warily — one hand held out, t’other 
ready to guard. Gaddy turned pink and said 
it was so. 

Curtiss. Poor old Gaddy. They all do it. 
Who’s she? Let’s hear the details. 

Blayne. She’s a girl — daughter of a 
Colonel Somebody. 

Doone. Simla’s stiff with Colonels’ daugh- 
ters. Be more explicit. 

Blayne. Wait a shake. What was her 
name ? Three — something. Three — 

Curtiss. Stars, perhaps. Gaddy knows 
that brand. 

Blayne. Threegan — Minnie Threegan. 

Mackesy. Threegan! Isn’t she a little bit 
of a girl with red hair? 

Blayne. ’Bout that — from what Markyn 
said. 

Mackesy. Then I’ve met her. She was at 
Lucknow last season. ’Owned a permanently 
juvenile Mamma, and danced damnably. I 
say, Jervoise, you knew the Threegans, didn’t 
you? 

Jervoise. {Civilian of twenty-five years* 
service, waking up from his dose.) Eh? 


24 


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What’s that ? Knew who ? How ? I thought 
I was at home, confound you ! 

Mackesy. The Threegan girl’s engaged, so 
Blayne says. 

Jervoise. {Slowly.) Engaged — engaged! 
bless my soul ! I’m getting an old man ! Little 
Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only the 
other day I went home with them in the Surat 
— no, the Massilia — and she was crawling 
about on her hands and knees among the ayahs. 
’Used to call me the ^*Tick Tack Sahib/' be- 
cause I showed her my watch. And that was 
in Sixty-Seven — no. Seventy. Good God, how 
time flies ! I’m an old man. I remember when 
Threegan married Miss Derwent — daughter 
of old Hooky Derwent — but that was before 
your time. And so the little baby’s engaged to 
have a little baby of her own ! Who’s the other 
fool? 

Mackesy. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars. 

Jervoise. 'Never met him. Threegan lived 
in debt, married in debt, and’ll die in debt. 
’Must be glad to get the girl off his hands. 

Blayne. Gaddy has money — lucky devil. 
Place at Home, too. 

Doone. He comes of first-class stock. 
’Can’t quite understand his being caught by a 
Colonel’s daughter, and {looking cautiously 


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25 


round room) Black Infantry at that! No of- 
fence to you, Blayne. 

Blayne. {StiMy.) Not much, tha-anks. 

Curtiss. {Quoting motto of Irregular Mo- 
guls.) *^We are what we are,” eh, old man? 
But Gaddy was such a superior animal as a 
rule. Why didn’t he go Home and pick his 
wife there? 

Mackesy. They are all alike when they 
come to the turn into the straight. About 
thirty a man begins to get sick of living 
alone — 

Curtiss. And of the eternal muttony-chop 
in the morning. 

Doone. It’s a dead goat as a rule, but go on, 
Mackesy. 

Mackesy. If a man’s once taken that way 
nothing will hold him. Do you remember 
Benoit of your service, Doone? They trans- 
ferred him to Tharanda when his time came, 
and he married a platelayer’s daughter, or 
something of that kind. She was the only fe- 
male about the place. 

Doone. Yes, poor brute. That smashed 
Benoit’s chances of promotion altogether. 
Mrs. Benoit used to ask: “Was you goin’ to 
the dance this evenin’ ?” 

Curtiss. Hang it all! Gaddy hasn’t mar- 


26 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 


ried beneath him. There’s no tar-brush in the 
family, I suppose. 

Jervoise. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You 
young fellows talk as though the man was do- 
ing the girl an honor in marrying her. You’re 
all too conceited — nothing’s good enough for 
you. 

Blayne. Not even an empty Club, a dam’ 
bad dinner at the Judge’s, and a Station as 
sickly as a hospital. You’re quite right. We’re 
a set of Sybarites. 

Doone. Luxurious dogs, wallowing in — 

Curtiss. Prickly heat between the shoul- 
ders. I’m covered with it. Let’s hope Beora 
will be cooler. 

Blayne. Whew ! Are you ordered into 
camp, too? I thought the Gunners had a clean 
sheet. 

Curtis. No, worse luck. Two cases yes- 
terday — one died — and if we have a third, out 
we go. Is there any shooting at Beora, 
Doone ? 

Doone. The country’s under water, except 
the patch by the Grand Trunk Road. I was 
there yesterday, looking at a hund, and came 
across four poor devils in their last stage. It’s 
rather bad from here to Kuchara. 

Curtiss. Then we’re pretty certain to have 


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27 


a heavy go of it. Heigho! I shouldn’t mind 
changing places with Gaddy for a while. 
’Sport with Amaryllis in the shade of the 
Town Hall, and all that. Oh, why doesn’t 
somebody come and marry me, instead of let- 
ting me go into cholera-camp? 

Macksey. Ask the Committee. 

Curtiss. You ruffian! You’ll stand me an- 
other peg for that. Blayne, what will you take ? 
Macksey is fine on moral grounds. Doone, 
have you any preference ? 

Doone. Small glass Kiimmel, please. Ex- 
cellent carminative, these days. Anthony told 
me so. 

Macksey. (Signing voucher for four 
drinks.) Most unfair punishment. I only 
thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied 
round the billiard tables by the nymphs of 
Diana. 

Blayne. Curtiss would have to import his 
nymphs by train. Mrs. Cockley’s the only 
woman in the Station. She won’t leave Cock- 
ley, and he’s doing his best to get her to go. 

Curtiss. Good, indeed I Here’s Mrs. Cock- 
ley’s health. To the only wife in the Station 
and a damned brave woman! 

Om^Tes. (Drinking.) A damned brave 
woman ! 


28 


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Blayne. I suppose Gaddy will bring his 
wife here at the end of the cold weather. They 
are going to be married almost immediately, I 
believe. 

Curtiss. Gaddy may thank his luck that the 
Pink Hussars are all detachment and no head- 
quarters this hot weather, or he’d be torn from 
the arms of his love as sure as death. Have 
you ever noticed the thorough-minded way 
British Cavalry take to cholera? It’s because 
they are so expensive. If the Pinks had stood 
fast here, they would have been out in camp a 
month ago. Yes, I should decidedly like to be 
Gaddy. 

Mackesy. He’ll go Home after he’s mar- 
ried, and send in his papers — see if he doesn’t. 

Blayne. Why shouldn’t he? Hasn’t he 
money? Would any one of us be here if we 
weren’t paupers? 

Doone. Poor old pauper! What has be- 
come of the six hundred you rooked from our 
table last month ? 

Blayne. It took unto itself wings. I think 
an enterprising tradesman got some of it, and 
shroff gobbled the rest — or else I spent it. 

Curtiss. Gaddy never had dealings with a 
shroff in his life. 

Doone. Virtuous Gaddy! If / had three 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 


29 

thousand a month, paid from England, I don’t 
think I’d deal with a shroff either. 

Mackesy. {Yawning.) Oh, it’s a sweet 
life! I wonder whether matrimony would 
make it sweeter. 

Curtiss. Ask Cockley — with his wife dy- 
ing by inches ! 

Blayne. Go home and get a fool of a girl 
to come out to — what is it Thackeray says? — 
“the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul.” 

Doone. Which reminds me. My quarters 
leak like a sieve. I had fever last night from 
sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, 
one can’t do anything to a roof till the Rains 
are over. 

Curtiss. What’s wrong with you? You 
haven’t eighty rotting Tommies to take into a 
running stream. 

Doone. No: but I’m mixed boils and bad 
language. I’m a regular Job all over my body. 
It’s sheer poverty of blood, and I don’t see any 
chance of getting richer — either way. 

Blayne. Can’t you take leave ? 

Doone. That’s the pull you Army men have 
over us. Ten days are nothing in your sight. 
Vm so important that Government can’t find a 
substitute if I go away. Ye-es, I’d like to be 
Gaddy, whoever his wife may be. 


30 


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Curtiss. You’ve passed the turn of life that 
Mackesy was speaking of. 

Doone. Indeed I have, but I never yet had 
the brutality to ask a woman to share my life 
out here. 

Blayne. On my soul I believe you’re right. 
I’m thinking of Mrs. Cockley. The woman’s 
an absolute wreck. 

Doone. Exactly. Because she stays down 
here. The only way to keep her fit would be 
to send her to the Hills for eight months — and 
the same with any woman. I fancy I see' my- 
self taking a wife on those terms. 

Mackesy. With the rupee at one and six- 
pence. The little Doones would be little Dehra 
Doones, with a fine Mussoorie chi-chi anent 
to bring home for the holidays. 

Curtiss. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur- 
horns for Doone to wear, free of expense, pre- 
sented by — 

Doone. Yes, it’s an enchanting prospect. 
By the way, the rupee hasn’t done falling yet. 
The time will come when we shall think our- 
selves lucky if we only lose half our pay. 

Curtiss. Surely a third’s loss enough. Who 
gains by the arrangement? That’s what I 
want to know. 

Blayne. The Silver Question! I’m going 


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31 


to bed if you begin squabbling. Thank Good- 
ness, here’s Anthony — looking like a ghost. 

Enter Anthony, Indian Medical Staff , 
very white and tired. 

Anthony. ’Evening, Blayne. It’s raining 
in sheets. Whiskey peg lao, khitmatgar. The 
roads are something ghastly. 

Curtiss. How’s Mingle? 

Anthony. Very bad, and more frightened. 
I handed him over to Fewton. Mingle might 
just as well have called him in the first place, 
instead of bothering me. 

Blayne. He’s a nervous little chap. What 
has he got, this time ? 

Anthony. ’Can’t quite say. A very bad 
tummy and a blue funk so far. He asked me 
at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to 
be a fool. That soothed him. 

Curtiss. Poor devil! The funk does half 
the business in a man of that build. 

Anthony. (Lighting a cheroot.) I firmly 
You know the amount of trouble he’s been giv- 
believe the funk will kill him if he stays down, 
ing Fewton for the last three weeks. He’s do- 
ing his very best to frighten himself into the 
grave. 

General Chorus. Poor little devil ! Why 
doesn’t he get away? 


32 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 


Anthony. Can’t. He has his leave all 
right, but he’s so dipped he can’t take it, and I 
don’t think his name on paper would raise four 
annas. That’s in confidence, though. 

Mackesy. All the Station knows it. 

Anthony. ‘T suppose I shall have to die 
here,” he said, squirming all across the bed. 
He’s quite made up his mind to Kingdom 
a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a 
Come. And I know he has nothing more than 
hand on himself. 

Blayne. That’s bad. That’s very bad. 
Poor little Miggy. Good little chap, too. I 
say — 

Anthony. What do you say ? 

Blayne. Well, look here — anyhow. If it’s 
like that — as you say — I say fifty. 

Curtiss. I say fifty. 

Mackesy. I go twenty better. 

Doone. Bloated Croesus of the Bar ! I say 
fifty. Jervoise, what do you say? Hi! Wake 
up! 

Jervoise. Eh? What’s that? What’s that? 

Curtiss. We want a hundred rupees from 
you. You’re a bachelor drawing a gigantic in- 
come, and there’s a man in a hole. 

Jervoise. What man? Any one dead? 

Blayne. No, but he’ll die if you don’t give 


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33 


the hundred. Here! Kerens a peg-voucHer. 
You can see what weVe signed for, and An- 
thony's man will come round to-morrow to 
collect it. So there will be no trouble. 

Jervoise. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. 
J. There you are (feebly). It isn't one of 
your jokes, is it? 

Blayne. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, 
you were the biggest poker-winner last week, 
and you've defrauded the tax-collector too 
long. Sign ! 

Anthony. Let's see. Three fifties and a 
seventy — two twenty — three twenty — say four 
hundred and twenty. That’ll give him a month 
clear at the Hills. Many thanks, you men. I’ll 
send round the chaprassi to-morrow. 

Curtiss. You must engineer his taking the 
stuff, and of course you mustn't — 

Anthony. Of course. It would never do. 
He'd weep with gratitude over his evening 
drink. 

Blayne. That's just what he would do, 
damn him. Oh ! I say, Anthony, you pretend 
to know everything. Have you heard about 
Gaddy? 

Anthony. No. Divorce Court at last ? 

Blayne. Worse. He's engaged ! 

Anthony. How much ? He can't be I 


34 


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Blayne. He is. He’s going to be married 
in a few weeks. Markyn told me at the Judge’s 
this evening. It’s pukka. 

Anthony. You don’t say so ? Holy Moses ! 
There’ll be a shine in the tents of Kedar. 

Curtiss. ’Regiment cut up rough, think 
you? 

Anthony. ’Don’t know anything about the 
Regiment. 

Mackesy. It is bigamy, then ? 

Anthony. Maybe. Do you mean to say 
that you men have forgotten, or is there more 
charity in the world than I thought ? 

Doone. You don’t look pretty when you are 
trying to keep a secret. You bloat. Explain. 

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott! 

Blayne. (After a long pause, to the room 
generally . ) It’s my notion that we are a set of 
fools. 

Mackesy. Nonsense. That business was 
knocked on the head last season. Why, young 
Mallard — 

Anthony. Mallard was a candlestick, pa- 
raded as such. Think awhile. Recollect last 
season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mal- 
lard, did Gaddy ever talk to any other woman? 

Curtiss. There’s something in that. It was 
slightly noticeable now you come to mention it. 
But she’s at Naini Tal and he’s at Simla. 


THE WORLD WITHOUT 


35 

Anthony. He had to go to Simla to look 
after a globe-trotter relative of his — a person 
with a title. Uncle or aunt. 

Blayne. And there he got engaged. No 
law prevents a man growing tired of a woman. 

Anthony. Except that he mustn’t do it till 
the woman is tired of him. And the Herriott 
woman was not that. 

Curtiss. She may be now. Two months of 
Naini Tal works wonders. 

Doone. Curious thing how some women 
carry a Fate with them. There was a Mrs. 
Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men in- 
variably fell away and got married. It became 
a regular proverb with us when I was down 
there. I remember three men desperately de- 
voted to her, and they all, one after another 
took wives. 

Curtiss. That’s odd. Now I should have 
thought that Mrs. Deegie’s influence would 
have led them to take other men’s wives. It 
ought to have made them afraid of the judg- 
ment of Providence. 

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott will make Gaddy 
afraid of something more than the judgment 
of Providence, I fancy. 

Blayne. Supposing things are as you say, 
he’ll be a fool to face her. He’ll sit tight at 
Simla. 


36 THE WORLD WITHOUT 


Anthony. ’Shouldn't be a bit surprised if 
he went off to Naini to explain. He’s an un- 
accountable sort of man, and she's likely to be 
a more than unaccountable woman. 

Doone. What makes you take her charac- 
ter away so confidently? 

Anthony. Primum tempus. Gaddy was 
her first, and a woman doesn’t allow her first 
man to drop away without expostulation. She 
justifies the first transfer of affection to her- 
self by swearing that it is forever and ever. 
Consequently — 

Blayne. Consequently, we are sitting here 
till past one o’clock, talking scandal like a set 
of Station cats. Anthony, it’s all your fault. 
We were perfectly respectable till you came in. 
Go to bed. I’m off. Good-night all. 

Curtiss. Past one! It’s past two, by Jove, 
and here’s the khit coming for the late charge. 
Just Heavens! One, two, three four five ru- 
pees to pay for the pleasure of saying that a 
poor little beast of a woman is no better than 
she should be. I’m ashamed of myself. Go to 
bed, you slanderous villains, and if I’m sent to 
Borea to-morrow, be prepared to hear I’m 
dead before paying my card account ! 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 



THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


Only why should it be with pain at all 
Why must I ’twixt the leaves of coronal 
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow? 

Why should the other women know so much, 

And talk together : — Such the look and such 
The smile he used to love with, then as now. 

Any Wife to any Husband. 

Scene — A Naini Tal dinner for thirty-four. 
Plate, wines, crockery, and khitmatgars 
carefully calculated to scale of Rs. 6000 per 
mensem, less Exchange. Table split length- 
ways by bank of dowers. 

Mrs. Herriott. (After conversation has 
risen to proper pitch.) Ah! ’Didn’t see you in 
the crush in the drawing-room. (Sotto voce.) 
Where have you been all this while, Pip? 

Captain Gadsby. (Turning from regularly 
ordained dinner partner and settling hock 
glasses.) Good evening. (Sotto voce.) Not 
quite so loud another time. You’ve no notion 
how your voice carries. ( Aside. ) So much for 
shirking the written explanation. It’ll have to 
be a verbal one now. Sweet prospect! How 
on earth am I to tell her that I am a respecta- 

39 


40 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


ble, engaged member of society and it’s all over 
between us? 

Mrs. H. I’ve a heavy score against you. 
Where were you at the Monday Pop? Where 
were you on Tuesday? Where were you at the 
Lamonts’ tennis. I was looking everywhere. 

Capt. G. For me ! Oh, I was alive some- 
where, I suppose. {Aside.) It’s for Minnie’s 
sake, but it’s going to be dashed unpleasant. 

Mrs. H. Have I done anything to offend 
you? I never meant it if I have. I couldn’t 
help going for a ride with the Vaynor man. 
It was promised a week before you came up. 

Capt. G. I didn’t know — 

Mrs. H. It really was. 

Capt. G. Anything about it, I m.ean. 

Mrs. H. What has upset you to-day? All 
these days? You haven’t been near me for 
four whole days — nearly one hundred hours. 
Was it kind of you, Pip? And I’ve been look- 
ing forward so much to your coming. 

Capt. G. Have you? 

Mrs. H. You know I have! I’ve been as 
foolish as a schoolgirl about it. I made a little 
calendar and put it in my card-case, and every 
time the twelve o’clock gun went off I 
scratched out a square and said : ‘‘That brings 
me nearer to Pip. My Pip!” 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


41 


Capt. G. {With an uneasy laugh.) What 
will Mackler think if you neglect him so ? 

Mrs. H. And it hasn’t brought you nearer. 
You seem farther away than ever. Are you 
sulking about something? I know your tem- 
per. 

Capt. G. No. 

Mrs. H. Have I grown old in the last few 
months then? {Reaches forward to hank of 
Hozvers for menu-card.) 

Partner on Left. Allow me. {Hands 
menu-card. Mrs. H. keeps her arm at full 
stretch for three seconds. ) 

Mrs. H. {To partner.) Oh, thanks. I 
didn’t see. {Turns right again.) Is anything 
in me changed at all? 

Capt. G. For Goodness’ sake go on with 
your dinner! You must eat something. Try 
one of those cutlet arrangements. {Aside.) 
And I fancied she had good shoulders, once 
upon a time ! What an ass a man can make of 
himself ! 

Mrs. H. {Helping herself to a paper frill , 
seven peas, some stamped carrots and a spoon- 
ful of gravy.) That isn’t an answer. Tell me 
whether I have done anything. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) If it isn’t ended here 
there will be a ghastly scene somewhere else. 


42 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


If only Fd written to her and stood the racket 
— at long range. {To Khitmatgar.) Han! 
Simpkin do. {Aloud.) Fll tell you later on. 

Mrs. H. Tell me now. It must be some 
foolish misunderstanding, and you know that 
there was to be nothing of that sort between us. 
We, of all people in the world, can’t afford it. 
Is it the Vaynor man, and don’t you like to say 
so ? On my honor — 

Capt. G. I haven’t given the Vaynor man a 
thought. 

Mrs. H. But how d’you know that I 
haven’t ? 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Here’s my chance and 
may the Devil help me through with it. {Aloud 
and measuredly.) Believe me, I do not care 
how often or how tenderly you think of the 
Vaynor man. 

Mrs. H. I wonder if you mean that. — Oh, 
what is the good of squabbling and pretend- 
ing to misunderstand when you are only up for 
so short a time ? Pip, don’t be a stupid ! 

Follows a pause, during which he crosses 
his left leg over his right and continues 
his dinner. 

Capt. G. {In answer to the thunderstorm 
in her eyes.) Corns — my worst. 

Mrs. H. Upon my word, you are the very 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


43 

rudest man in the world! I’ll never do it 
again. 

Capt. G. (Aside.) No, I don’t think you 
will; but I wonder what you will do before 
it’s all over. (To Khitmatgar.) Thor ah ur 
Simpkin do. 

Mrs. H. Well! Haven’t you the grace to 
apologize, bad man ? 

Capt. G. (Aside.) I mustn’t let it drift 
back now. Trust a woman for being as blind 
as a bat when she won’t see. 

Mrs. H. I’m waiting : or would you like me 
to dictate a form of apology? 

Capt. G. (Desperately.) By all means dic- 
tate. 

Mrs. H. (Lightly.) Very well. Rehearse 
your several Christian names after me and go 
on : ‘Trofess my sincere repentance.” 

Capt. G. ‘‘Sincere repentance.” 

Mrs. H. “For having behaved” — 

Capt. G. (Aside.) At last! I wish to Good- 
ness she’d look away. “For having behaved” 
— as I have behaved, and declare that I am 
thoroughly and heartily sick of the whole busi- 
ness, and take this opportunity of making 
clear my intention of ending it, now, hencefor- 
ward, and forever. (Aside.) If any one had 
told me I should be such a blackguard ! — 


44 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


Mrs. H. {Shaking a spoonful of potato 
chips into her plate.) That’s not a pretty joke. 

Capt. G. No. It’s a reality. (Aside.) I 
wonder if smashes of this kind are always so 
raw. 

Mrs. H. Really, Pip, you’re getting more 
absurd every day. 

Capt. G. I don’t think you quite under- 
stand me. Shall I repeat it? 

Mrs. H. No ! For pity’s sake don’t do that. 
It’s too terrible, even in fun. 

Capt. G. I’ll let her think it over for a 
while. But I ought to be horse-whipped. 

Mrs. H. I want to know what you meant 
by what you said just now. 

Capt. G. Exactly what I said. No less. 

Mrs. H. But what have I done to deserve 
it? What have I done? 

Capt. G. (Aside.) If she only wouldn’t 
look at me. (Aloud and very slowly, his eyes 
on his plate.) D’you remember that evening in 
July, before the Rains broke, when you said 
that the end would have to come sooner or 
later — and you wondered for which of us it 
would come first? 

Mrs. H. Yes! I was only joking. And you 
swore that, as long as there was breath in your 
body, it should never come. And I believed 
you. 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


45 

Capt. G. {Fingering menu-card.) Well, it 
has. That’s all. 

A long pause, during which Mrs. H. 
hows her head and rolls the bread-twist 
into little pellets: G. stares at the ole- 
anders. 

Mrs. H. {Throwing hack her head and 
laughing naturally.) They train us women 
well, don’t they, Pip? 

Capt. G. {Brutally, touching shirt-stud.)' 
So far as the expression goes. {Aside.) It 
isn’t in her nature to take things quietly. 
There’ll be an explosion yet. 

Mrs. H. {With a shudder.) Thank you. 
B-but even Red Indians allow people to wrig- 
gle when they’re being tortured, I believe. 
{Slips fan from girdle and fans slowly: rim of 
fan level with chin.) 

Partner on Left. Very close to-night, 
isn’t it? ’You find it too much for you? 

Mrs. H. Oh, no, not in the least. But they 
really ought to have punkahs, even in your 
cool Naini Tal, oughtn’t they? {Turns, drop- 
ping fan and raising eyebrows.) 

Capt. G. It’s all right. {Aside.) Here 
comes the storm! 

Mrs. H. {Her eyes on the tablecloth: fan 
ready in right hand.) It was very cleverly 


46 THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


managed, Pip, and I congratulate you. You 
swore — ^you never contented yourself with 
merely saying a thing — you swore that, as far 
as lay in your power, you’d make my wretched 
life pleasant for me. And you’ve denied me 
the consolation of breaking down. I should 
have done it — indeed I should. A woman 
would hardly have thought of this refinement, 
my kind, considerate friend. {Fan- guard as 
before.) You have explained things so ten- 
derly and truthfully, too! You haven’t spoken 
or written a word of warning, and you let me 
believe in you till the last minute. You haven’t 
condescended to give me your reason yet ! No ! 
A woman could not have managed it half so 
well. Are there many men like you in the 
world ? 

Capt. G. I’m sure I don’t know. {To Khit- 
mat gar.) Ohe! Simpkin do. 

Mrs. H. You call yourself a man of the 
world, don’t you. Do men of the world be- 
have like Devils when they do a woman the 
honor to get tired of her? 

Capt. G. I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t 
speak so loud ! 

Mrs. H. Keep us respectable, O Lord, what- 
ever happens ! Don’t be afraid of my compro- 
mising you. You’ve chosen your ground far 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


47 


too well, and Fve been properly brought up. 
{Lowering fan.) Haven't you any pity, Pip, 
except for yourself? 

Capt. G. Wouldn't it be rather impertinent 
of me to say that I'm sorry for you? 

Mrs. H. I think you have said it once or 
twice before. You're growing very careful of 
my feelings. My God, Pip, I was a good 
woman once. You said I was. You've made 
me what I am. What are you going to do 
with me ? What are you going to do with me ? 
Won't you say that you are sorry? {Helps 
herself to iced asparagus.) 

Capt. G. I am sorry for you, if you want 
the pity of such a brute as I am. I'm awfly 
sorry for you. 

Mrs. H. Rather tame for a man of the 
world. Do you think that that admission 
clears you? 

Capt. G. What can I do? I can only tell 
you what I think of myself. You can't think 
worse than that? 

Mrs. H. Oh, yes I can ! And now, will you 
tell me the reason of all this ? Remorse ? Has 
Bayard been suddenly conscience-stricken ? 

Capt. G. {Angrily, his eyes still lowered.) 
No ! The thing has come to an end on my side. 
That's all. Madsch! 


48 THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


Mrs. H. ‘That’s all. MaHschr As though 
I were a Cairene Dragoman. You used to 
make prettier speeches. D’you remember 
when you said ? — 

Capt. G. For Heaven’s sake don’t bring 
that back! Call me anything you like and I’ll 
admit it — 

Mrs. H. But you don’t care to be reminded 
of old lies? If I could hope to hurt you one- 
tenth as much as you have hurt me to-night — 
No, I wouldn’t — I couldn’t do it — liar though 
you are. 

Capt. G. I’ve spoken the truth. 

Mrs. H. My dear Sir, you flatter yourself. 
You have lied over the reason. Pip, remember 
that I know you as you don’t know yourself. 
You have been everything to me, though you 
are — {Fan-guard.) Oh, what a contempti- 
ble Thing it is ! And so you are merely tired of 
me? 

Capt. G. Since you insist upon my repeat- 
ing it — Yes. 

Mrs. H. Lie the first. I wish I knew a 
coarser word. Lie seems so ineffectual in your 
case. The fire has just died out and there is 
no fresh one? Think for a minute, Pip, if you 
care whether I despise you more than I do. 
Simply Madsch, is it? 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


49 


Capt. G. Yes. (Aside.) I think I deserve 
this. 

Mrs. H. Lie number two. Before the next 
glass chokes you, tell me her name. 

Capt. G. (Aside.) Ill make her pay for 
dragging Minnie into the business! (Aloud.) 
Is it likely ? 

Mrs. H. Very likely if you thought that It 
would flatter your vanity. You’d cry my name 
on the house-tops to make people turn round. 

Capt. G. I wish I had. There would have 
been an end of this business. 

Mrs. H. Oh, no, there would not — And so 
you were going to be virtuous and blase, were 
you ? To come to me and say : ‘TVe done with 
you. The incident is clo-osed.” I ought to be 
proud of having kept such a man so long. 

Capt. G. (Aside.) It only remains to pray 
for the end of the dinner. (Aloud.) You know 
what I think of mvself. 

Mrs. H. As it’s the only person in the 
world you ever do think of, and as I know 
your mind thoroughly, I do. You want to get 
it all over an — Oh, I can’t keep you back! 
And you’re going — think of it, Pip — to throw 
me over for another woman. And you swore 
thaC all other women were — Pip, my Pip! 
She can^t care for you as I do. Believe me, she 
can’t ! Is it any one that I know ? 


50 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


Capt. G. Thank goodness it isn’t. {Aside.) 
I expected a cyclone, but not an earthquake. 

Mrs. H. She can't! Is there anything that 
I wouldn’t do for you — or haven’t done ? And 
to think that I should take this trouble over 
you, knowing what you are! Do you despise 
me for it? 

Capt. G. {Wiping his month to hide a 
smile.) Again f It’s entirely a work of char- 
ity on your part. 

Mrs. H. Ahhh! But I have no right to 
resent it. — Is she better-looking than I ? Who 
was it said? — 

Capt. G. No — not that! 

Mrs. H. I’ll be more merciful than you 
were. Don’t you know that all women are 
alike ? 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Then this is the excep- 
tion that proves the rule. 

Mrs. H. All of them! I’ll tell you any- 
thing you like. I will upon my word ! They 
only want the admiration — from anybody — no 
matter who — anybody! But there is always 
one man that they care for more than any one 
else in the world, and would sacrifice all the 
others to. Oh, do listen! I’ve kept the Vaynor 
man trotting after me like a poodle, and he 
believes that he is the only man I am interested 
in. I’ll tell you what he said to me. 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


51 

Capt. G. Spare him. {Aside.) I wonder 
what his version is. 

Mrs. H. He’s been waiting for me to look 
at him all through dinner. Shall I do it, and 
you can see what an idiot he looks ? 

Capt. G. ‘^But what imports the nomina- 
tion of' this gentleman ?” 

Mrs. H. Watch! {Sends a glance to the 
Vaynor man, who tries vainly to combine a 
mouthful of ice pudding, a smirk of self-satis- 
faction, a • glare of intense devotion, and the 
stolidity of a British dining countenance.) 

Capt. G. {Critically.) He doesn’t look 
pretty. Why didn’t you wait till the spoon 
was out of his mouth? 

Mrs. H. To amuse you. She’ll make an 
exhibition of»you as I’ve made of him; and 
people will, laugh at you. Oh, Pip, can’t you 
see that? It’s as plain as the noonday sun. 
You’ll be trotted about and told lies, and made 
a fool of like the others. I never made a fool 
of you, did I? 

Capt. G. {Aside.) What a clever little 
woman it is! 

Mrs. H. Well, what have you to say? 

Capt. G. I feel better. 

Mrs. H. Yes, I suppose so, after I have 
come down to your level. I couldn’t have 


52 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


done it if I hadn't cared for you so much. I 
have spoken the truth. 

Capt. G. It doesn't alter the situation. 

Mrs. H. {Passionately,) Then she has 
said that she cares for you! Don't believe 
her, Pip. It's a lie — as bad as yours to me ! 

Capt. G. Ssssteady ! I've a notion that a 
friend of yours is looking at you. 

Mrs. H. He! I hate him. He introduced 
you to me. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) And some people would 
like women to assist in making the laws. In- 
troduction to imply condonement. {Aloud.) 
Well, you see, if you can remember so far back 
as that, I couldn't, in common politeness, re- 
fuse the offer. 

Mrs. H. In common politeness ! We have 
got beyond that! 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Old ground means fresh 
trouble. {Aloud.) On my honor — 

Mrs. H. Your what? Ha, ha! 

Capt. G. Dishonor, then. She's not what 
you imagine. I meant to — 

Mrs. H. Don't tell me anything about her ! 
She zvon't care for you, and when you come 
back, after having made an exhibition of your- 
self, you'll find me occupied with — 

Capt. G. {Insolently.) You couldn’t while 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 53 

I am alive. (Aside.) If that doesn’t bring her 
pride to her rescue, nothing will. 

Mrs. H. (Drawing herself up.) Couldn’t 
do it? I? (Softening.) You’re right. I don’t 
believe I could — though you are what you are 
— a coward and a liar in grain. 

Capt. G. It doesn’t hurt so much after 
your little lecture — with demonstrations. 

Mrs. H. One mass of vanity! Will noth- 
ing ever touch you in this life? There must 
be a Hereafter if it’s only for the benefit of — 
But you will have it all to yourself. 

Capt. G. (Under his eyebrows.) Are you 
so certain of that? 

Mrs. H. I shall have had mine in this life ; 
and it will serve me right. 

Capt. G. But the admiration that you in- 
sisted on so strongly a moment ago? (Aside.) 
Oh, I am a brute! 

Mrs. H. (Fiercely.) Will that console me 
for knowing that you will go to her with the 
same words, the same arguments, and the — 
the same pet names you used to me? And if 
she cares for you, you two will laugh over my 
story. Won’t that be punishment heavy 
enough even for me — even for me? — And 
it’s all useless. That’s another punishment. 

Capt. G. (Feebly.) Oh, come. I’m not so 
low as you think. 


54 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


Mrs. H. Not now, perhaps, but you will 
be. Oh, Pip, if a woman flatters your vanity, 
there’s nothing on earth that you would not 
tell her; and no meanness that you would not 
do. Have I known you so long without know- 
ing that ? 

Capt. G. If you can trust me in nothing 
else — and I don’t see why I should be trusted 
— you can count upon my holding my tongue. 

Mrs. H. If you denied everything you’ve 
said this evening and declared it was all in fun 
(a long pause), I’d trust you. Not otherwise. 
All I ask is, don’t tell her my name. Please 
don’t. A man might forget: a woman never 
would. {Looks up table and sees hostess be- 
ginning to collect eyes.) So it’s all ended, 
through no fault of mine — Haven’t I be- 
haved beautifully? I’ve accepted your dismis- 
sal, and you managed it as cruelly as you 
could, and I have made you respect my sex, 
haven’t I? {Arranging gloves and fan.) I 
only pray that she’ll know you some day as I 
know you now. I wouldn’t be you then, for 
I think even your conceit will be hurt. I hope 
she’ll pay you back the humiliation you’ve 
brought on me. I hope — No. I don’t. I 
can*t give you up. I must have something to 
look forward to or I shall go crazy. When it’s 


THE TENTS OF KEDAR 


55 


all over, come back to me, come back to me, 
and you’ll find that you’re my Pip still ! 

Capt. G. (Very clearly.) ’False move, and 
you pay for it. It’s a girl I 

Mrs. H. (Rising.) Then it was true! They 
said — ^but I wouldn’t insult? you by asking. A 
girl ! I was a girl not very long ago. Be good 
to her, Pip. I daresay she believes in you. 

Goes out zvith an uncertain smile. He 
watches her through the door, and set- 
tles into a chair as the men redistribute 
themselves. 

Capt. G. Now, if there is any Power who 
looks after this world, will He kindly tell me 
what I have done? (Reaching out for the 
claret, and half aloud,) What have I done? 



WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 








WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


And are not afraid with any amazement. 

Marriage Service. 

Scene. — A bachelor's bedroom — toilet-table 
arranged with unnatural neatness. Cap- 
tain Gadsby asleep and snoring heavily. 
Time, 10.30 a.m. — a glorious autumn day 
at Simla. Enter delicately Captain Maf- 
FLiN of Gadsby's regiment. Looks at 
sleeper, and shakes his head murmuring 
*'Poor Gaddy." Performs violent fantasia 
with hair-brushes on chair-back. 

Capt. M. Wake up, my sleeping- beauty! 
{Roars.) 

“Uprouse ye, then, my merry, merry men ! 

It is our opening day! 

It is our opening da-ay!” 

Gaddy, the little dicky-birds have been bill- 
ing and cooing for ever so long ; and Pm here ! 

Capt. G. {Sitting up and yawning.) 
’Mornin’. This is awf’ly good of you, old 
fellow. Most awf’ly good of you. ’Don’t 
know what I should do without you. ’Pon my 

59 


6o 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


soul, I don’t. ’Haven’t slept a wink all night. 

Capt. M. I didn’t get in till half-past 
eleven. ’Had a look at you then, and you 
seemed to be sleeping as soundly as a con- 
demned criminal. 

Capt. G. Jack, if you want to make those 
disgustingly worn-out jokes, you’d better go 
away. {With portentous gravity.) It’s the 
happiest day in my life. 

Capt. M. {Chuckling grimly.) Not by a 
very long chalk, my son. You’re going 
through some of the most refined torture 
you’ve ever known. But be calm. I am with 
you. ’Shun! Dress! 

Capt. G. Eh! Wha-at? 

Capt. M. Do you suppose that you are 
your own master for the next twelve hours? 
If you do, of course — {Makes for the door.) 

Capt. G. No ! For Goodness’ sake, old man, 
don’t do that! You’ll see me through, won’t 
you ? I’ve been mugging up that beastly drill, 
and can’t remember a line of it. 

Capt. M. {Overhauling G.’s uniform.) Go 
and tub. Don’t bother me. I’ll give you ten 
minutes to dress in. 

Interval, filled by the noise as of one 
splashing in the bath-room. 

Capt. G. {Emerging from dressing-room.) 
What time is it? 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


6i 


Capt. M. Nearly eleven. 

Capt. G. Five hours more. O Lord! 

Capt. M. (Aside.) ’First sign of funk, 
that. ’Wonder if it’s going to spread, 
(Aloud.) Come along to breakfast. 

Capt. G. I can’t eat anything. I don’t 
want any breakfast. 

Capt. M. (Aside.) So early! (Aloud.) 
Captain Gadsby, I order you to eat breakfast, 
and a dashed good breakfast, too. None of 
your bridal airs and graces with me! 

Leads G. downstairs, and stands over him 
while he eats two chops. 

Capt. G. (Who has looked at his zvatch 
thrice in the last hve minutes.) What time is 
it? 

Capt. M. Time to come for a walk. Light 
up. 

Capt. G. I haven’t smoked for ten days, 
and I won’t now. (Takes cheroot which M. 
has cut for him, and blows smoke through his 
nose luxuriously.) We aren’t going down the 
Mall, are we? 

Capt. M. (Aside.) They’re all alike in 
these stages. (Aloud.) No, my Vestal. We’re 
going along the quietest road we can find. 

Capt. G. Any chance of seeing Her? 

Capt. M. Innocent! No! Come along. 


62 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT, 


and if you want me for the final obsequies, 
don’t cut my eye out with your stick. 

Capt. G. {Spinning round.) I say, isn’t 
She the dearest creature that ever walked? 
What’s the time? What comes after ‘Vilt 
thou take this woman”? 

Capt. M. You go for the ring. R’clect 
it’ll be on the top of my right-hand little fin- 
ger, and just be careful how you draw it off, 
because I shall have the Verger’s fees some- 
where in my glove. 

Capt. G. {Walking forward hastily.) 

D the Verger! Come along! It’s past 

twelve and I haven’t seen Her since yesterday 
evening. {Spinning round again.) She’s an 
absolute angel. Jack, and She’s a dashed deal 
too good for me. Look here, does She come 
up the aisle on my arm, or how ? 

Capt. M. If I thought that there was the 
least chance of your remembering anything 
for two consecutive minutes. I’d tell you. Stop 
passaging about like that! 

Capt. G. {Halting in the middle of the 
road.) I say. Jack. 

Capt. M. Keep quiet for another ten min- 
utes if you can, you lunatic; and walk! 

The two tramp at hve miles an hour for 
hfteen minutes. 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 63 


Capt. G. What’s the time? How about 
that cursed wedding-cake and the slippers ? 
They don’t throw ’em about in church, do 
they? 

Capt. M. In-variably. The Padre leads 
off with his boots. 

Capt. G. Confound your silly soul ! Don’t 
make fun of me. I can’t stand it, and I won’t ! 

Capt. M. {Untroubled.) So-000, old 
horse! You’ll have to sleep for a couple of 
hours this afternoon. 

Capt. G. {Spinning round.) I’m not go- 
ing to be treated like a dashed child. Under- 
stand that! 

Capt. M. {Aside.) Nerves gone to fiddle- 
strings. What a day we’re having! {Ten- 
derly putting his hand on G.’s shoulder.) My 
David, how long have you known this Jona- 
than? Would I come up here to make a fool 
of you — ^fter all these years? 

Capt. G. {Penitently.) I know, I know. 
Jack — ^but I’m as upset as I can be. Don’t 
mind what I say. Just hear me run through 
the drill and see if I’ve got it all right: — 

‘To have and to hold for better or worse, as 
it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end, so help me God. 
Amen.” 


64 WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


Capt. M. {Suffocating with suppressed 
laughter.) Yes. That’s about the gist of it. 
I’ll prompt if you get into a hat. 

Capt. G. {Earfiestly.) Yes, you’ll stick by 
me, Jack, won’t you? I’m awf’ly happy, but I 
don’t mind telling you that I’m in a blue funk ! 

Capt. M. {Gravely.) Are you? I should 
never have noticed it. You don’t look like it. 

Capt. G. Don’t I? That’s all right. {Spin- 
ning round.) On my soul and honor, Jack, 
She’s the sweetest little angel that ever came 
down from the sky. There isn’t a woman on 
earth fit to speak to Her. 

Capt. M. {Aside.) And this is old Gaddy! 
{Aloud.) Go on if it relieves you. 

Capt. G. You can laugh! That’s all you 
wild asses of bachelors are fit for. 

Capt. M. {Drawling.) You never would 
wait for the troop to come up. You aren’t 
quite married yet, y’know. 

Capt. G. Ugh ! That reminds me. I don’t 
believe I shall be able to get into my boots. 
Let’s go home and try ’em on! {Hurries for- 
ward. ) 

Capt. M. ’Wouldn’t be in your shoes for 
anything that Asia has to offer. 

Capt. G. {Spinning round.) That just 
shows your hideous blackness of soul — your 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 65 


dense stupidity — your brutal narrow-minded- 
ness. There’s only one fault about you. You’re 
the best of good fellows, and I don’t know 
what I should have done without you, but — 
you aren’t married. (Wags his head gravely.) 
Take a wife. Jack. 

Capt. M. (With a face like a wall.) Ya-as. 
Whose for choice? 

Capt. G. If you’re going to be a black- 
guard, I’m going on — What’s the time? 

Capt. M. (Hums .) — 

**An’ since ’twas very clear we drank only ginger-beer, 
Faith, there must ha' been some stingo in the ginger.” 

Come back, you maniac. I’m going to take 
you home, and you’re going to lie down. 

Capt. G. What on earth do I want to lie 
down for? 

Capt. M. Give me a light from your che- 
root and see. 

Capt. G. (Watching cheroot-butt quiver 
like a tuning-fork.) Sweet state I’m in! 

Capt. M. You are. I’ll get you a peg and 
you'll go to sleep. 

They return and M. compounds a four- 
hnger peg. 

Capt. G. O bus! bus! It’ll make me as 
drunk as an owl. 


66 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


Capt. M. Curious thing, ’twon’t have the 
slightest effect on you. Drink it off, chuck 
yourself down there, and go to bye-bye. 

Capt. G. It’s absurd. I sha’n’t sleep. I 
know I sha’n’t! 

Falls into heavy doze ai end of seven min- 
utes. Capt. M. watches him tenderly. 

Capt. M. Poor old Gaddy ! I’ve seen a few 
turned off before, but never one who went to 
the gallows in this condition. ’Can’t tell how 
it affects ’em, though. It’s the thoroughbreds 
that sweat when they’re backed into double- 
harness. — And that’s the man who went 
through the guns at Amdheran like a devil 
possessed of devils. {Leans over G.) But 
this is worse than the guns, old pal — worse 
than the guns, isn’t it ? ( G. turns in his sleep, 
and M. touches him clumsily on the forehead.) 
Poor, dear old Gaddy I Going like the rest of 
’em — going like the rest of ’em — Friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother — eight years. 
Dashed bit of a slip of a girl — eight weeks ! 
And — where’s your friend? {Smokes discon- 
solately till church clock strikes three.) 

Capt. M. Up with you I Get into your kit. 

Capt. G. Already? Isn’t it too soon? 
Hadn’t I better have a shave ? 

Capt. M. No! You’re all right. {Aside.) 
He’d chip his chin to pieces. 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 67 

Capt. G. Whafs the hurry? 

Captv M. You’ve got to be there first. 

Capt. G. To be stared at? 

Capt. M. Exactly. You’re part of the 
show. Where’s the burnisher? Your spurs are 
in a shameful state. 

Capt. G. {Gruffly.) Jack, I be damned if 
you shall do that for me. 

Capt. M. {More gruffly.) Dry up, and 
get dressed! If I choose to clean your spurs, 
you’re under my orders. 

Capt. G. dresses. M. follows suit. 

Capt. M. {Critically, walking round.) 
M’yes, you’ll do. Only don’t look so like a 
criminal. Ring, gloves, fees — that’s all right 
for me. Let your moustache alone. Now, if 
the ponies are ready, we’ll go. 

Capt. G. {Nervously.) It’s much too soon. 
Let’s light up ! Let’s have a peg ! Let’s — 

Capt. M. Let’s make bally asses of our- 
selves ! 

Bells. ( Without . ) — 


*^Good — ^peo — pie — all 
To prayers — we call.” 

Capt. M. There go the bells ! Come on — 
unless you’d rather not. {They ride off.) 


68 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


Bells. — 

“We honor the King 
And Brides joy do bring — 

Good tidings we tell, 

And ring the Dead’s knell.” 

Capt. G. {Dismounting at the door of the 
Church.) I say, aren’t we much too soon? 
There are no end of people inside. I say, aren’t 
we much too late? Stick by me. Jack! What 
the devil do I do? 

Capt. M. Strike an attitude at the head of 
the aisle and wait for Her. (G. groans as M. 
wheels him into position before three hundred 
eyes . ) 

Capt. M. {Imploringly.) Gaddy, if you 
love me, for pity’s sake, for the Honor of the 
Regiment, stand up! Chuck yourself into your 
uniform! Look like a man! I’ve got to speak 
to the Padre a minute. (G. breaks into a gen- 
tle perspiration.) If you wipe your face I’ll 
never be your best man again. Stand up ! { G. 
trembles visibly.) 

Capt. M. {Returning.) She’s coming 
now. Look out when the music starts. There’s 
the organ beginning to clack. 

Bride steps out of * rickshaw at Church 
door. G. catches a glimpse of her and 
takes heart. 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT, 69 


Organ. — 

“The Voice that breathed o’er Eden, 

That earliest marriage day, 

The primal marriage-blessing, 

It hath not passed away.” 

Capt. M. {Watching G.) By Jove! He is 
looking well. ’Didn't think he had it in him. 

Capt. G. How long does this hymn go on 
for? 

Capt. M. It will be over directly. (Anx- 
iously.) Beginning to bleach and gulp? Hold 
on, Gaddy, and think o’ the Regiment. 

Capt. G. (Measuredly.) I say, there’s a 
big brown lizard crawling up that wall. 

Capt. M. My Sainted Mother! The last 
stage of collapse ! 

Bride comes up to left of altar, lifts her 
eyes once to G., who is suddenly smit- 
ten mad. 

Capt. G. (To himself again and again. ) Lit- 
tle Featherweight’s a woman — a woman I And 
I thought she was a little girl. 

Capt. M. (In a whisper.) Form the halt 
— inward wheel. 

Capt. G. obeys mechanically and the cere- 
mony proceeds. 

Padre. . . . only unto her as long as ye 
both shall live? 


70 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


Capt. G. {His throat useless.) Ha-hmmm! 
Capt. M. Say you will or you won’t. 
There’s no second deal here. 

Bride gives response with perfect cool- 
ness j and is given away by the father, 
Capt. G. {Thinking to show his learning.) 
Jack give me away now, quick! 

Capt. M. You’ve given yourself away 
quite enough. Her right hand, man ! Repeat ! 
Repeat! “Theodore Philip.” Have you for- 
gotten your own name ? 

Capt. G. stumbles through Affirmation, 
which Bride repeats without a tremor. 
Capt. M. Now the ring ! Follow the Padre ! 
Don’t pull off my glove! Here it is! Great 
Cupid, he’s found his voice! 

G. repeats Troth in a voice to be heard to 
the end of the Church and turns on his 
heel. 

Capt. M. {Desperately.) Rein back ! Back 
to your troop! ’Tisn’t half legal yet. 

Padre. . . . joined together let no man 
put asunder. 

Capt. G. paralyzed with fear jibs after 
Blessing. 

Capt. M. {Quickly.) On your own front—* 
one length. Take her with you. I don’t come. 
You’ve nothing to say. (Capt. G. jingles up 
to altar.) 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


71 


Capt. M. {In a piercing rattle meant to he 
a whisper.) Kneel, you stiff-necked ruffian! 
Kneel I 

Padre. . . . whose daughters are ye so 
long as ye do well and are not afraid with any 
amazement. 

Capt. M. Dismiss! Break off! Left 
wheel ! 

All troop to vestry. They sign. 

Capt. M. Kiss Her, Gaddy. 

Capt. G. {Rubbing the ink into his glove.) 
Eh! Wha-at? 

Capt. M. {Taking one pace to Bride.) If 
you don’t, I shall. 

Capt. G. {Interposing an arm.) Not this 
journey ! 

General kissing, in which Capt. G. is pur- 
sued by unknown female. 

Capt. G. {Faintly to M.) This is Hades! 
Can I wipe my face now? 

Capt. M. My responsibility has ended. 
Better ask Missis Gadsby. 

Capt. G. winces as though shot and pro- 
cession is Mendelssohned out of Church 
to house, where usual tortures take 
place over the wedding-cake. 

Capt. M. {At table.) Up with you, Gaddy. 
They expect a speech. 

Capt. G. {After three minutes' agony.) Ha 
— hmmm. {Thunders of applause.) 


72 WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


Capt. M. Doocid good, for a first attempt. 
Now go and change your kit while Mamma is 
weeping over — “the Missus.” (Capt. G. dis- 
appears, Capt M. starts up tearing his hair,) 
It's not half legal. Where are the shoes ? Get 
an ayah. 

Ayah. Missie Captain Sahib done gone 
band karo all the jutis, 

Capt. M. {Brandishing scahbarded sword,) 
Woman, produce those shoes ! Some one lend 
me a bread-knife. We mustn't crack Gaddy’s 
head more than it is. (Slices heel off ivhite 
satin slipper and puts slipper up his sleeve.) 
Where is the Bride? (To the company at 
large. ) Be tender with that rice. It’s a heathen 
custom. Give me the big bag. 

Bride slips out quietly into ^rickshaw and 
departs toward the sunset. 

Capt. M. (In the open.) Stole away, by 
Jove! So much the worse for Gaddy! Here 
he is. Now Gaddy, this'll be livelier than 
Amdheran ! Where's your horse ? 

Capt. G. (Furiously, seeing that the women 
are out of earshot.) Where the — is my Wife? 

Capt. M. Half-way to Mahasu by this 
time. You’ll have to ride like Young Lochin- 
var. 


WITH ANY AMAZEMENT 


73 


Horse comes round on his hind legs; re- 
fuses to let G. handle him. 

Capt. G. Oh you will, will you? Get 
round, you brute — you hog — you beast! Get 
round! 

Wrenches horse^s head over, nearly break- 
ing lower jaw; swings himself into sad- 
dle, and sends home both spurs in the 
midst of a spattering gale of Best 
Patna. 

Capt. M. For your life and your love — 
ride, Gaddy ! — And God bless you I 

Throws half a pound of rice at G., who 
disappears, bowed forzvard on the sad- 
dle, in a cloud of sunlit dust. 

Capt. M. Fve lost old Gaddy. {Lights 
cigarette and strolls off, singing absently ) : — 

“You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on 
his card. 

That a young man married is a young man marred!” 

Miss Deercourt. {From her horse.) 
Really, Captain Mafflin! You are more plain 
spoken than polite ! 

Capt. M. {Aside.) They say marriage is 
like cholera. Wonder who’ll be the next vic- 
tim. 

White satin slipper slides from his sleeve 
and falls at his feet. Left wondering. 


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THE GARDEN OF EDEN 



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And ye shall be as — Gods! 

Scene. — Thymy grass-plot at hack of the 
Mahasu ddk-hungalow, overlooking little 
wooded valley. On the left, glimpse of the 
Dead Forest of Fagoo; on the right, Simla 
Hills. In background, line of the Snows. 
Captain Gadsby^ now three weeks a hus- 
band, is smoking the pipe of peace on a rug 
in the sunshine. Banjo and tobacco-pouch 
on rug. Overhead the Fagoo eagles. Mrs. 
G. comes out of bungalow. 

Mrs. G. My husband ! 

Capt. G. {Lazily, with intense enjoyment.) 
Eh, wha-at? Say that again. 

Mrs. G. IVe written to Mamma and told 
her that we shall be back on the 17th. 

Capt. G. Did you give her my love ? 

Mrs. G. No, I kept all that for myself. 
(Sitting down by his side.) I thought you 
wouldn't mind. 

Capt. G. ( With mock sternness. ) I object 

77 


78 THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


awf’ly. How did you know that it was yours 
to keep? 

Mrs. G. I guessed, Phil. 

Capt. G. {Rapturously.) Lit-tle Feather- 
weight ! 

Mrs. G. I won't be called those sporting 
pet names, bad boy. 

Capt. G. You’ll be called anything I 
choose. Has it ever occurred to you. Madam, 
that you are my Wife? 

Mrs. G. It has. I haven’t ceased wonder- 
ing at it yet. 

Capt. G. Nor I. It seems so strange; and 
yet, somehow, it doesn’t. {Confidently.) You 
see, it could have been no one else. 

Mrs. G. {Softly.) No. No one else — for 
me or for you. It must have been all arranged 
from the beginning. Phil, tell me again what 
made you care for me. 

Capt. G. How could I help it? You were 
yoUj you know. 

Mrs. G. Did you ever want to help it? 
Speak the truth! 

Capt. G. {A twinkle in his eye.) I did, 
darling, just at the first. But only at the very 
first. {Chuckles.) I called you — stoop low 
and I’ll whisper — ‘‘a little beast.” Ho! Ho! 
Ho! 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


79 


Mrs. G. {Taking him by the moustache and 
making him sit up. ) — little — beast !” Stop 

laughing over your crime! And yet you had 
the — the — awful cheek to propose to me! 

Capt. G. Fd changed my mind then. And 
you weren’t a little beast any more. 

Mrs. G. Thank you, sir! And when was I 
ever? 

Capt. G. Never! But that first day, when 
you gave me tea in that peach-colored muslin 
gown thing, you looked — you did indeed, dear 
— such an absurd little mite. And I didn’t 
know what to say to you. 

Mrs. G. {Twisting moustache.) So you 
said “little beast.” Upon my word. Sir! / 
called you a “Crrrreature,” but I wish now I 
had called you something worse. 

Capt. G. {Very meekly.) I apologize, but 
you’re hurting me awf’ly. (interlude.) You’re 
welcome to torture me again on those terms. 

Mrs. G. Oh, why did you let me do it ? 

Capt. G. {Looking across valley.) No rea- 
son in particular, but — if it amused you or did 
you any good — you might — wipe those dear 
little boots of yours on me. 

Mrs. G. {Stretching out her hands.) Don’t! 
Oh, don’t ! Philip, my King, please don’t talk 
like that. It’s how / feel. You’re so much too 
good for me. So much too good ! 


8o 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


Capt. G. Me! Fm not fit to put my arm 
round you. {Puts it round.) 

Mrs. G. Yes, you are. But I — what have 
I ever done? 

Capt. G. Given me a wee bit of your heart, 
haven’t you, my Queen? 

Mrs. G. That' s nothing. Any one would 
do that. They cou — couldn’t help it. 

Capt. G. Pussy, you’ll make me horribly 
conceited. Just when I was beginning to feel 
so humble, too. 

Mrs. G. Humble! I don’t believe it’s in 
your character. 

Capt. G. What do you know of my char- 
acter, Impertinence? 

Mrs. G. Ah, but I shall, sha’n’t I, Phil ? I 
shall have time in all the years and years to 
come, to know everything about you; and 
there will be no secrets between us. 

Capt. G. Little witch ! I believe you know 
me thoroughly already. 

Mrs. G. I think I can guess. You’re self- 
ish? 

Capt. G. Yes. 

Mrs. G. Foolish? 

Capt. G. Very. 

Mrs. G. And a dear? 

Capt. G. That is as my lady pleases. 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


8i 


Mrs. G. Then your lady is pleased. (A 
pause.) D’you know that we’re two solemn, 
serious, grown-up people — 

Capt. G. {Tilting her straw hat over her 
eyes.) You grown-up! Pooh! You’re a 
baby. 

Mrs. G. And we’re talking nonsense. 

Capt. G. Then let’s go on talking nonsense. 
I rather like it. Pussy, Pll tell you a secret. 
Promise not to repeat ? 

Mrs. G. Ye — es. Only to you. 

Capt. G. I love you. 

Mrs. G. Re-ally! For how long? 

Capt. G. Forever and ever. 

Mrs. G. That’s a long time. 

Capt. G. ’Think so? It’s the shortest I 
can do with. 

Mrs. G. You’re getting quite clever. 

Capt. G. I’m talking to you. 

Mrs. G. Prettily turned. Hold up your 
stupid old head and I’ll pay you for it! 

Capt. G. (Affecting supreme contempt.) 
Take it yourself if you want it. 

Mrs. G. I’ve a great mind to — and I will ! 
(Takes it and is repaid with interest.) 

Capt. G. Little Featherweight, it’s my opin- 
ion that we are a couple of idiots. 

Mrs. G. We’re the only two sensible people 


82 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


in the world! Ask the eagle. He’s coming 
by. 

Capt. G. Ah I I dare say he’s seen a good 
many sensible people at Mahasu. They say 
that those birds live for ever so long. 

Mrs. G. How long? 

Capt. G. A hundred and twenty years. 

Mrs. G. a hundred and twenty years! 
O-oh! And in a hundred and twenty years 
where will these two sensible people be? 

Capt. G. What does it matter so long as 
we are together now? 

Mrs. G. {Looking round the horizon.) 
Yes. Only you and I — I and you — in the 
whole wide, wide world until the end. {Sees 
the line of the Snows.) How big and quiet 
the hills look! D’you think they care for us? 

Capt. G. ’Can’t say I’ve consulted ’em par- 
ticularly. / care, and that’s enough for me. 

Mrs. G. {Drawing nearer to him.) Yes, 
now — but afterward. What’s that little black 
blur on the Snows? 

Capt. G. A snowstorm, forty miles away. 
You’ll see it move, as the wind carries it across 
the face of that spur, and then it will be all 
gone. 

Mrs. G. And then it will be all gone. 
{Shivers.) 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 83 


Capt. G. {Anxiously.) ’Not chilled, pet, 
are you ? ’Better let me get your cloak. 

Mrs. G. No. Don’t leave me, Phil. Stay 
here. I believe I am afraid. Oh, why are the 
hills so horrid! Phil, promise me, promise me 
that you’ll always love me. 

Capt. G. What’s the trouble, darling? I 
can’t promise any more than I have; but I’ll 
promise that again and again if you like. 

Mrs. G. {Her head on his shoulder.) Say 
it, then — say it! N-no — don’t The — the 
eagles would laugh. {Recovering.) My hus- 
band, you’ve married a little goose. 

Capt. G. (Very tenderly.) Havel? lam 
content whatever she is, so long as she is mine. 

Mrs. G. {Quickly.) Because she is yours 
or because she is me mineself ? 

Capt. G. Because she is both. {Piteously.) 
I’m not clever, dear, and I don’t think I can 
make myself understood properly. 

Mrs. G. I understand. Pip, will you tell me 
something? 

Capt. G. Anything you like. {Aside.) I 
wonder what’s coming now. 

Mrs. G. {Haltingly, her eyes lowered.) You 
told me once in the old days — centuries and 
centuries ago — that you had been engaged be- 
fore. I didn’t say anything — then. 


84 THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


Capt. G. {Innocently.) Why not? 

Mrs. G. (Raising her eyes to his.) Because 
‘ — because I was afraid of losing you, my 
heart. But now — tell about it — please. 

Capt. G. There’s nothing to tell. I was 
awf’ly old then — nearly two and twenty — and 
she was quite that. 

Mrs. G. That means she was older than 
you. I shouldn’ like her to have been younger. 
Well? 

Capt. G. Well, I fancied myself in love and 
raved about a bit, and — oh, yes, by Jove! I 
made up poetry. Ha ! Ha ! 

Mrs. G. You never wrote any for me! What 
happened ? 

Capt. G. I came out here, and the whole 
thing went phut. She wrote to say that there 
had been a mistake, and then she married. 

Mrs. G. Did she care for you much ? 

Capt. G. No. At least she didn’t show it 
as far as I remember. 

Mrs. G. As far as you remember ! Do you 
remember her name? (Hears it and bows her 
head.) Thank you, my husband. 

Capt. G. Who but you had the right ? Now, 
Little Featherweight, have you ever been 
mixed up in any dark and dismal tragedy? 

Mrs. G. If you call me Mrs. Gadsby, p’raps 
I’ll tell. 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 85 

Capt. G. {Throwing Parade rasp into his 
voice.) Mrs. Gadsby, confess! 

Mrs. G. Good Heavens, Phil! I never 
knew that you could speak in that terrible 
voice. 

Capt. G. You don’t know half my accom- 
plishments yet. Wait till we are settled in the 
Plains, and I’ll show you how I bark at my 
troop. You were going to say, darling? 

Mrs. G. I — I don’t like to, after that voice. 
{Tremulously.) Phil, never you dare to speak 
to me in that tone, whatever I may do! 

Capt. G. My poor little love ! Why, you’re 
shaking all over. I am so sorry. Of course I 
never meant to upset you. Don’t tell me any- 
thing. I’m a brute. 

Mrs. G. No, you aren’t, and I zvill tell — 
There was a man. 

Capt. G. {Lightly.)' Was there? Lucky 
man ! 

Mrs. G. {In a whisper.) And I thought I 
cared for him. 

Capt. G. Still luckier man ! Well? 

Mrs. G. And I thought I cared for him — 
and I didn’t — and then you came — and I cared 
for you very, very much indeed. That’s all. 
'{Face hidden.) You aren’t angry, are you? 

Capt. G. Angry? Not in the least. {Aside.) 


86 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


Good Lord, what have I done to deserve this 
angel ? 

Mrs. G. (Aside.) And he never asked for 
the name ! How funny men are ! But perhaps 
it’s as well. 

Capt. G. That man will go to heaven be- 
cause you once thought you cared for him. 
’Wonder if you’ll ever drag me up there? 

Mrs. G. (Firmly.) ’Sha’n’t go if you don’t. 

Capt. G. Thanks. I say, Pussy, I don’t 
know much about your religious beliefs. You 
were brought up to believe in a heaven and all 
that, weren’t you? 

Mrs. G. Yes. But it was a pincushion 
heaven, with hymn-books in all the pews. 

Capt. G. (Wagging his head with intense 
conviction.) Never mind. There is a pukka 
heaven. 

Mrs. G. Where do you bring that message 
from, my prophet? 

Capt. G. Here ! Because we care for each 
other. So it’s all right. 

Mrs. G. (As a troop of langurs crash 
through the branches.) So it’s all right. But 
Darwin says that we came from those! 

Capt. G. (Placidly.) Ah! Darwin was 
never in love with an angel. That settles it. 
Sstt, you brutes! Monkeys, indeed! You 
shouldn’t read those books. 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 87 

Mrs. G. {Folding her hands.) If it pleases 
my Lord the King to issue proclamation. 

Capt. G. Don't, dear one. There are no 
orders between us. Only I’d rather you didn’t. 
They lead to nothing, and bother people’s 
heads. 

Mrs. G. Like your first engagement. 

Capt. G. {With an immense calm.) That 
was a necessary evil and led to you. Are you 
nothing? 

Mrs. G. Not so very much, am I ? 

Capt. G. All this world and the next to me. 

Mrs. G. {Very softly.) My boy of boys! 
Shall I tell you something? 

Capt. G. Yes, if it’s not dreadful — about 
other men. 

Mrs. G. It’s about my own bad little self. 

Capt. G. Then it must be good. Go on, 
dear. 

Mrs. G. {Slowly.) I don’t know why I’m 
telling you, Pip ; but if ever you marry again — 
'{Interlude.) Take your hand from my mouth 
or I’ll bite! In the future, then remember — 
I don’t know quite how to put it ! 

Capt. G. {Snorting indignantly.) Don’t 
try. “Marry again,” indeed ! 

Mrs. G. I must. Listen, my husband. 
Never, never, never tell your wife anything 


88 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


that you do not wish her to remember and 
think over all her life. Because a woman- 
yes, I am a woman — can’t forget. 

Capt. G. By Jove, how do you know that? 

Mrs. G. {Confusedly.) I don’t. I’m only 
guessing. I am — I was — a silly little girl; 
but I feel that I know so much, oh, so very 
much more than you, dearest. To begin with. 
I’m your wife. 

Capt. G. So I have been led to believe. 

Mrs. G. And I shall want to know every 
one of your secrets — to share everything you 
know with you. (Stares round desperately.) 

Capt. G. So you shall, dear, so you shall — 
but don’t look like that. 

Mrs. G. For your own sake don’t stop me, 
Phil. I shall never talk to you in this way 
again. You must not tell me! At least, not 
now. Later on, when I’m an old matron it 
won’t matter, but if you love me, be very good 
to me now; for this part of my life I shall 
never forget ! Have I made you understand ? 

Capt. G. I think so, child. Have I said 
anything yet that you disapprove of ? 

Mrs. G. Will you be very angry? That — 
that voice, and what you said about the en- 
gagement — 

Capt. G. But you asked to be told that, 
darling. 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 89 

Mrs. G. And that’s why you shouldn’t have 
told me ! You must be the judge, and, oh, Pip, 
dearly as I love you, I sha’n’t be able to help 
you! I shall hinder you, and you must judge 
in spite of me I 

Capt. G. {Meditatively,) We have a 
great many things to find out together, God 
help us both — say so, Pussy — but we shall un- 
derstand each other better every day; and I 
think I’m beginning to see now. How in the 
world did you come to know just the import- 
ance of giving me just that lead? 

Mrs. G. I’ve told you that I don’t know. 
Only somehow it seemed that, in all this new 
life, I was being guided for your sake as well 
my own. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Then Mafflin was 
right! They know, and we — we’re blind — all 
of us. {Lightly.) ’Getting a little beyond our 
depth, dear, aren’t we? I’ll remember, and, if 
I fail, let me be punished as I deserve. 

Mrs. G. There shall be no punishment. 
We’ll start into life together from here — you 
and I — and no one else. 

Capt. G. And no one else. {A pause.) 
Your eyelashes are all wet, Sweet? Was there 
ever such a quaint little Absurdity? 

Mrs. G. Was there ever such nonsense 
talked before? 


90 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


Capt. G. {Knocking the ashes out of his 
pipe.) Tisn’t what we say, it’s what we don’t 
say, that helps. And it’s all the profoundest 
philosophy. But no one would understand — 
even if it were put into a book. 

Mrs. G. The idea ! No — only we ourselves, 
or people like ourselves — if there are any peo- 
ple like us. 

Capt. G. {Magisterially.) All people, not 
like ourselves, are blind idiots. 

Mrs. G. {Wiping her eyes.) Do you think, 
then, that there are any people as happy as we 
are? 

Capt. G. ’Must be — unless we’ve appropri- 
ated all the happiness in the world. 

Mrs. G. {Looking toward Simla.) Poor 
dears! Just fancy if we have! 

Capt. G. Then we’ll hang on to the whole 
show, for it’s a great deal too jolly to lose — 
eh, wife o’ mine? 

Mrs. G. O Pip! Pip! How much of you is 
a solemn, married man and much a horrid, 
slangy schoolboy ? 

Capt. G. When you tell me how much of 
you was eighteen last birthday and how much 
is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysteri- 
ous, perhaps I’ll attend to you. Lend me that 
banjo. The spirit moveth me to jowl at the 
sunset. 


THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


91 


Mrs. G. Mind ! It’s not tuned. Ah ! How 
that jars. 

Capt. G. {Turning pegs.) It’s amazingly 
difficult to keep a banjo to proper pitch. 

Mrs. G. It’s the same with all musical in- 
struments. What shall it be ? 

Capt. G. ‘Wanity,” and let the hills hear. 
(Sings through the hrst and half of the second 
verse. Turning to Mrs. G.) Now, chorus! 
Sing, Pussy! 

Both Together. (Con brio, to the horror 
of the monkeys who are settling for the night . ) 

“Vanity, all is Vanity,” said Wisdom, scorning me — 

I clasped my true Love’s tender hand and answered 
frank and free — ee: — 

“If this be Vanity who’d be wise? 

If this be Vanity who’d be wise? 

If this be Vanity who’d be wi — ise 
(Crescendo.) Vanity let it be!” 

Mrs. G. (Dedantly to the grey of the even- 
ing sky.) ‘Wanity let it be !” 

Echo. (From the Fagoo spur.) Let it be! 





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And you may go into every room of the house and 
see everything that is there, but into the Blue Room 
you must not go , — The Story of Blue Beard. 

Scene. — The Gadsbys'' bungalow in the 
Plains. Time, ii A. M. ow a Sunday morn^ 
ing. Captain Gadsby, in his shirt-sleeves, 
is bending over a complete set of HussaPs 
equipment, from saddle to picketing-rope, 
which is neatly spread over the floor of his 
study. He is smoking an unclean briar, and 
his forehead is puckered with thought. 

Capt. G. {To himself, fingering a head- 
stall.) Jack's an ass. There's enough brass 
on this to load a mule — and, if the Americans 
know anything about anything, it can be cut 
down to a bit only. 'Don't want the watering- 
bridle, either. Humbug! — Half a dozen sets 
of chains and pulleys for one horse! Rot! 
{scratching his head.) Now, let's consider it 
all over from the beginning. By Jove, I've for- 
gotten the scale of weights. Ne'er mind. 

95 


96 


FATIMA 


’Keep the bit only, and eliminate every boss 
from the crupper to breastplate. No breast- 
plate at all. Simple leather strap across the 
breast-=-like the Russians. Hi! Jack never 
thought of that! 

Mrs. G. {Entering hastily, her hand hound 
in a cloth.) Oh, Pip, I’ve scalded my hand 
over that horrid, horrid Tiparee jam! 

Capt. G. {Absently.) Eh! Wha-at? 

Mrs. G. {With round-eyed reproach.) I’ve 
scalded it aw-iu\\y\ Aren’t you sorry? And 
I did so want that jam to jam properly. 

Capt. G. Poor little woman! Let me kiss 
the place and make it well. {Unrolling the 
bandage.) You small sinner! Where’s that 
scald? I can’t see it. 

Mrs. G. On the top of the little finger. 
There ! — It’s a most ’normous big burn ! 

Capt. G. {Kissing little finger.) Baby! 
Let Hyder look after the jam. You know I 
don’t care for sweets. 

Mrs. G. In-deed? — Pip! 

Capt. G. Not of that kind, anyhow. And 
now run along, Minnie, and leave me to my 
own base devices. I’m busy. 

Mrs. G. {Calmly settling herself in long 
chair.) So I see. What a mess you’re mak- 
ing! Why have you brought all that smelly 
leather stuff into the house? 


FATIMA 


97 


Capt. G. To play with. Do you mind, 
dear? 

Mrs. G. Let me play too. I’d like it. 

Capt. G. Fm afraid you wouldn’t Pussy — 
Don’t you think that jam will burn, or what- 
ever it is that jam does when it’s not looked 
after by a clever little housekeeper? 

Mrs. G. I thought you said Hyder could 
attend to it. I left him in the veranda, stir- 
ring — when I hurt myself so. 

Capt. G. {His eye returning to the equip- 
ment.) Po-oor little woman! — Three pounds 
four and seven is three eleven, and that can be 
cut down to two eight, with just a lee-tle. care, 
without weakening anything. Farriery is all 
rot in incompetent hands. What’s the use of 
a shoe-case when a man’s scouting? Hv can’t 
stick it on with a lick — like a stamp — the shoe 1 
Skittles ! 

Mrs. G. What’s skittles? Pah! What is 
this leather cleaned with ? 

Capt. G. Cream and champagne and — 
Look here, dear, do you really want to talk to 
me about anything important? 

Mrs. G. No. I’ve done my accounts, and 
I thought I’d like to see what you’re doing. 

Capt. G. Well love, now you’ve seen and — 
Would you mind? — That is to say — Minnie, 
I really am busy. 


98 


FATIMA 


Mrs. G. You want me to go? 

Capt. G. Yes, dear, for a little while. This 
tobacco will hang in your dress, and saddlery 
doesn’t interest you. 

Mrs. G. Everything you do interests me, 
Pip. 

Capt. G. Yes, I know, I know, dear. I’ll 
tell you all about it some day when I’ve put a 
head on this thing. In the meantime — 

Mrs. G. I’m to be turned out of the room 
like a troublesome child? 

Capt. G. No-o. I don’t meant that ex- 
actly. But, you see, I shall be tramping up 
and down, shifting these things to and fro, and 
I shall be in your way. Don’t you think so ? 

Mrs. G. Can’t I lift them about? Let me 
try. {Reaches forward to trooper^ s saddle.) 

Capt. G. Good gracious, child, don’t touch 
it. You’ll hurt yourself. {Picking up saddle.) 
Little girls aren’t expected to handle numdahs. 
Now, where would you like it put? {Holds 
saddle above his head.) 

Mrs. G. {A break in her voice.) Nowhere. 
Pip, how good you are — and how strong! Oh, 
what’s that ugly red streak inside your arm ? 

Capt. G. {Lowering saddle quickly.) Noth- 
ing. It’s a mark of sorts. {Aside.) And 
Jack’s coming to tiffin with his notions all cut 
and dried! 


FATIMA 


99 


Mrs. G. I know it's a mark, but Fve never 
seen it before. It runs all up the arm. What 
is it? 

Capt. G. a cut — if you want to know. 

Mrs. G. Want to know! Of course I do! 
I can’t have my husband cut to pieces in this 
way. How did it come. Was it an accident? 
Tell me, Pip. 

Capt. G. {Grimly.) No. ’Twasn’t an ac- 
cident. I got it — from a man — in Afghanistan. 

Mrs. G. In action ? Oh, Pip, and you never 
told me! 

Capt. G. I’d forgotten all about it. 

Mrs. G. Hold up your arm ! What a hor- 
rid, ugly scar! Are you sure it doesn’t hurt 
now! How did the man give it you? 

Capt. G. {Desperately looking at his 
watch.) With a knife. I came down — old Van 
Loo did, that’s to say — and fell on my leg, so I 
couldn’t run. And then this man came up and 
began chopping at me as I sprawled. 

Mrs. G. Oh, don’t, don’t ! That’s enough ! 
— Well, what happened ? 

Capt. G. I couldn’t get to my holster, and 
Mafflin came round the corner and stopped 
the performance. 

Mrs. G. How? He’s such a lazy man, I 
don’t believe he did. 


lOO 


FATIMA 


Capt. G. Don’t you? I don’t think the man 
had much doubt about it. Jack cut his head off. 

Mrs. G. Cut — his — head — off! “With one 
blow,” as they say in the books? 

Capt. G. I’m not sure. I was too interested 
in myself to know much about it. Anyhow, 
the head was off, and Jack was punching old 
Van Loo in the ribs to make him get up. Now 
you know all about it, dear, and now — 

Mrs. G. You want me to go, of course. 
You never told me about this, though I’ve been 
married to you for ever so long ; and you never 
would have told me if I hadn’t found out ; and 
you never do tell me anything about yourself, 
or what you do, or what you take an interest 
in. 

Capt. G. Darling, I’m always with you, 
aren’t I ? 

Mrs. G. Always in my pocket, you were go- 
ing to say. I know you are; but you are al- 
ways thinking away from me. 

Capt. G. {Trying to hide a smile.) Am 
I ? I wasn’t aware of it. I’m awf’ly sorry. 

Mrs. G. {Piteously.) Oh, don’t make fun 
of me! Pip, you know what I mean. When 
you are reading one of those things about 
Cavalry, by that idiotic Prince — why doesn’t 
he he a Prince instead of a stable-boy ? 


FATIMA 


lOI 


Capt. G. Prince Kraft a stable-boy — Oh, 
my Aunt ! Never mind, dear. You were going 
to say? 

Mrs. G. It doesn’t matter; you don’t care 
for what I say. Only — only you get up and 
walk about the room, staring in front of you, 
and then Mafflin comes in to dinner^ and after 
I’m in the drawing-room I can hear you and 
him talking, and talking, and talking, about 
things I can’t understand, and — oh, I get so 
tired and feel so lonely ! — I don’t want to com- 
plain and be a trouble, Pip; but I do — indeed 
I do! 

Capt. G. My poor darling ! I never thought 
of that. Why don’t you ask some nice people 
in to dinner? 

Mrs. G. Nice people! Where am I to find 
them? Horrid frumps! And if I did, I 
shouldn’t be amused. You know I only want 
you. 

Capt. G. And you have me, surely, Sweet- 
heart? 

Mrs. G. I have not! Pip, why don’t you 
take me into your life? 

Capt. G. More than I do? That would be 
difficult, dear. 

Mrs. G. Yes, I suppose it would — to you. 
I’m no help to you — no companion to you; and 
you like to have it so. 


102 


FATIMA 


Capt. G. Aren’t you a little unreasonable, 
Pussy ? 

Mrs. G. {Stamping her foot.) I’m the most 
reasonable woman in the world — when I’m 
treated properly. 

Capt. G. And since when have I been treat- 
ing you improperly? 

Mrs. G. Always — and since the beginning. 
You know you have. 

Capt. G. I don’t; but I’m willing to be con- 
vinced. 

Mrs. G. {Pointing to saddlery.) There! 

Capt. G. How do you mean? 

Mrs. G. What does all that mean? Why 
am I not to be told ? Is it so precious ? 

Capt. G. I forget its exact Governmental 
value just at present. It means that it is a 
great deal too heavy. 

Mrs. G. Then why do you touch it? 

Capt. G. To make it lighter. See here, 
little love, I’ve one notion and Jack has an- 
other, but we are both agreed that all this 
equipment is about thirty pounds too heavy. 
The thing is how to cut it down without weak- 
ening any part of it, and, at the same time, al- 
lowing the trooper to carry ever3dhing he 
wants for his own comfort — ^socks and shirts 
and things of that kind. 


FATIMA 


103 

Mrs. G. Why doesn’t he pack them in a 
little trunk? 

Capt. G. (Kissing her.) Oh, you darling! 
Pack them in a little trunk, indeed! Hussars 
don’t carry trunks, and it’s a most important 
thing to make the horse do all the carrying. 

Mrs. G. But why need you bother about 
it? You’re not a trooper. 

Capt. G. No; but I command a few score 
of him ; and equipment is nearly everything in 
these days. 

Mrs. G. More than mef 

Capt. G. Stupid! Of course not; but it’s 
a matter that I’m tremendously interested in, 
because if I or Jack, or I and Jack, work out 
some sort of lighter saddlery and all that, it’s 
possible that we may get it adopted. 

Mrs. G. How? 

Capt. G. Sanctioned at Home, where they 
will make a sealed pattern — a pattern that all 
the saddlers must copy — and so it will be used 
by all the regiments. 

Mrs. G. And that interests you? 

Capt. G. It’s part of my profession, 
y’know, and my profession is a good deal to 
me. Everything in a soldier’s equipment is 
important, and if we can improve that equip- 
ment, so much the better for the soldiers and 
for us. 


104 


FATIMA 


Mrs. G. Who’s ‘W’? 

Capt. G. Jack and I; only Jack’s notions 
are too radical. What’s that big sigh for, 
Minnie? 

Mrs. G. Oh, nothing — and you’ve kept all 
this a secret from me! Why? 

Capt. G. Not a secret, exactly, dear. I 
didn’t say anything about it to you because I 
didn’t think it would amuse you. 

Mrs. G. And am I only made to be 
amused ? 

Capt. G. No, of course. I merely mean 
that it couldn’t interest you. 

Mrs. G. It’s your work — and if you’d let 
me. I’d count all these things up. If they are 
too heavy, you know by how much they are too 
heavy, and you must have a list of things made 
out to your scale of lightness, and — 

Capt. G. I have got both scales somewhere 
in my head ; but it’s hard to tell how light you 
can make a headstall, for instance, until you’ve 
actually had a model made. 

Mrs. G. But if you read out the list, I could 
copy it down, and pin it up there just above 
your table. Wouldn’t that do? 

Capt. G. It would be awfully nice, dear, 
but it would be giving you trouble for nothing. 
I can’t work that way. I go by rule of thumb. 


FATIMA 


loS 

I know the present scale of weights, and the 
other one — the one that I’m trying to work to 
— will shift and vary so much that I couldn’t 
be certain, even if I wrote it down. 

Mrs. G. I’m so sorry. I thought I might 
help. Is there anything else that I could be of 
use in? 

Capt. G. {Looking around the room.) I 
can’t think of anything. You’re always help- 
ing me, you know. 

Mrs. G. Am I? How? 

Capt. G. You are you, of course, and as 
long as you’re near me — I can’t explain ex- 
actly, but it’s in the air. 

Mrs. G. And that’s why you wanted to 
send me away? 

Capt. G. That’s only when I’m trying to 
do work — grubby work like this. 

Mrs. G. Mafflin’s better, then, isn’t he? 

Capt. G. (Rashly.) Of course he is. Jack 
and I have been thinking along the same 
groove for two or three years about this equip- 
ment. It’s our hobby, and it may really be 
useful some day. 

Mrs. G. (After a pause.) And that’s all 
that you have away from me? 

Capt. G. It isn’t very far away from you 
now. Take care the oil on that bit doesn’t 
come off on your dress. 


io6 


FATIMA 


Mrs. G. I wish — I wish so much that I 
could really help you. I believe I could — if I 
left the room. But that’s not what I mean. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Give me patience! I 
wish she would go. {Aloud.) I assure you you 
can’t do anything for me, Minnie, and I must 
really settle down to this. Where’s my pouch ? 

Mrs. G. {Crossing to writing-table.) Here 
you are, Bear. What a mess you keep your 
table in! 

Capt. G. Don’t touch it. There’s a method 
in my madness, though you mightn’t think of 
it. 

Mrs. G. {At table.) I want to look — Do 
you keep accounts, Pip ? 

Capt. G. {Bending over saddlery.) Of a 
sort. Are you rummaging among the Troop 
papers ? Be careful. 

Mrs. G. Why ? I sha’n’t disturb anything. 
Good gracious! I had no idea that you had 
anything to do with so many sick horses. 

Capt. G. ’Wish I hadn’t, but they insist on 
falling sick. Minnie, if I were you I really 
should not investigate those papers. You may 
come across something that you won’t like. 

Mrs. G. Why will you always treat me like 
a child? I know I’m not displacing the hor- 
rid things. 


FATIMA 


107 

Capt. G. {Resignedly.) Very well, then. 
Don’t blame me if anything happens. Play 
with the table and let me go on with the sad- 
dlery. {Slipping hand into trouser s-pocket.) 
Oh, the deuce! 

Mrs. G. {Her hack to G.) What’s that for? 
Capt. G. Nothing. {Aside.) There’s not 
much in it, but I wish I’d torn it up. 

Mrs. G. {Turning over contents of table.) 
I know you’ll hate me for this; but I do want 
to see what your work is like. {A pause.) 
Pip, what are ‘Tarcy-buds” ? 

Capt. G. Hah! Would you really like to 
know ? They aren’t pretty things. 

Mrs. G. This Journal of Veterinary Sci- 
ence says they are of ‘‘absorbing interest.” 
Tell me. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) It may turn her atten- 
tion. 

Gives a long and designedly loathsome 
account of glanders and farcy. 

Mrs. G. Oh, that’s enough. Don’t go on! 
Capt. G. But you wanted to know — Then 
these things suppurate and matterate and 
spread — 

Mrs. G. Pip, you’re making me sick ! 
You’re a horrid, disgusting schoolboy. 

Capt. G. {On his knees among the bridles.) 


io8 


FATIMA 


You asked to be told. It’s not my fault if you 
worry me into talking about horrors. 

Mrs. G. Why didn’t you say — No? 

Capt. G. Good Heavens, child ! Have you 
come in here simply to bully me ? 

Mrs. G. I bully you? How could I! 
You’re so strong. {Hysterically.) Strong 
enough to pick me up and put me outside the 
door and leave me there to cry. Aren’t you? 

Capt. G. It seems to me that you’re an ir- 
rational little baby. Are you quite well ? 

Mrs. G. Do I look ill? '{Returning to ta~ 
hie.) Who is your lady friend with the big 
grey envelope and the fat monogram outside? 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Then it wasn’t locked 
up, confound it. {Aloud.) ‘^God made her, 
therefore let her pass for a woman.” You re- 
member what farcy-buds are like? 

Mrs. G. {Showing envelope.) This has 
nothing to do with them. I’m going to open 
it. May I? 

Capt. G. Certainly, if you want to. I’d 
sooner you didn’t, though. I don’t ask to look 
at your letters to the Deercourt girl. 

Mrs. G. You’d better not. Sir! {Takes let- 
ter from envelope.) Now, may I look? If you 
say no, I shall cry. 

Capt. G. You’ve never cried in my knowl- 
edge of you, and I don’t believe you could. 


FATIMA 


109 


Mrs. G. I feel very like it to-day, Pip. 
Don’t be hard on me. {Reads letter.) It be- 
gins in the middle, without any ''Dear Captain 
Gadsby,” or anything. How funny! 

Capt. G. {Aside.) No, it’s not Dear Cap- 
tain Gadsby, or anything, now. How funny! 

Mrs. G. What a strange letter! {Reads.) 
"And so the moth has come too near the can- 
dle at last, and has been singed into — shall I 
say Respectability ? I congratulate him, and 
hope he will be as happy as he deserves to be.” 
What does that mean? Is she congratulating 
you about our marriage? 

Capt. G. Yes, I suppose so. 

Mrs. G. {Still reading letter.) She seems 
to be a particular friend of yours. 

Capt. G. Yes. She was an excellent ma- 
tron of sorts — a Mrs. Herriott — wife of a 
Colonel Herriott. I used to know some of her 
people at Home long ago — before I came out. 

Mrs. G. Some Colonel’s wives are young 
— as young as me. I knew one who was 
younger. 

Capt. G. Then it couldn’t have been Mrs. 
Herriott. She was old enough to have been 
your mother, dear. 

Mrs. G. I remember now. Mrs. Scargill 
was talking about her at. the Duffins’ tennis. 


no 


FATIMA 


before you came for me, on Tuesday. Captain 
MafBin said she was a “dear old woman.’' Do 
you know, I think Mafflin is a very clumsy 
man with his feet. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) Good old Jack! {Aloud.) 
Why, dear? 

Mrs. G. He had put his cup down on the 
ground then, and he literally stepped into it. 
Some of the tea spurted over my dress — the 
grey one. I meant to tell you about it before. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) There are the makings 
of a strategist about Jack, though his methods 
are coarse. {Aloud.) You’d better get a new 
dress, then. {Aside.) Let us pray that that 
will turn her. 

Mrs. G. Oh, it isn’t stained in the least. I 
only thought that I’d tell you. (Returning to 
letter.) What an extraordinary person! 
{Reads.) “But need I remind you that you 
have taken upon yourself a charge of ward- 
ship” — what in the world is a charge of ward- 
ship? — “which, as you yourself know, may 
end in Consequences” — 

Capt. G. {Aside.) It’s safest to let ’em see 
everything as they come across it; but ’seems 
to me that there are exceptions to the rule. 
{Aloud.) I told you that there was nothing to 
be gained from rearranging my table. 


FATIMA 


III 


Mrs. G. {Absently.) What does the woman 
mean? She goes on talking about Conse- 
quences — “almost inevitable Consequences’* 
with a capital C— for half a page. {Flushing 
scarlet.) Oh, good gracious! How abomin- 
able! 

Capt. G. {Promptly.) Do you think so? 
Doesn’t it show a sort of motherly interest in 
us? {Aside.) Thank Heaven, Harry always 
wrapped her meaning up safely! {Aloud.) Is 
it absolutely necessary to go on with the letter, 
darling ? 

Mrs. G. It’s impertinent — it’s simply hor- 
rid. What right has this woman to write in 
this way to you ? She oughtn’t to. . 

Capt. G. When you write to the Deercourt 
girl, I notice that you generally fill three or 
four sheets. Can’t you let an old woman bab- 
ble on paper once in a way? She means well. 

Mrs. G. I don’t care. She shouldn’t write, 
and if she did, you ought to have shown me 
her letter. 

Capt. G. Can’t you understand why I kept 
it to myself, or must I explain at length — as I 
explained the farcy-buds ? 

Mrs. G. {Furiously.) Pip, I hate you! This 
is as bad as those idiotic saddle-bags on the 
floor. Never mind whether it would please me 


112 


FATIMA 


or not, you ought to have given it to me to 
read. 

Capt. G. It comes to the same thing. You 
took it yourself. 

Mrs. G. Yes, but if I hadn’t taken it, you 
wouldn’t have said a word. I think this Har- 
riet Herriott — it’s like a name in a book — is an 
interfering old Thing. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) So long as you thor- 
oughly understand that she is old, I don’t much* 
care what you think. {Aloud.) Very good, 
dear. Would you like to write and tell her so? 
She’s seven thousand miles away. 

Mrs. G. I don’t want to have anything to 
do with her, but you ought to have told me. 
{Turning to last page of letter.) And she pat- 
ronizes me, too. Vve never seen her! {Reads.) 
‘T do not know how the world stands with 
you; in all human probability I shall never 
know; but whatever I may have said before I 
pray for her sake more than for yours that 
all may be well. I have learned what misery 
means, and I dare not wish that any one dear 
to you should share my knowledge.” 

Capt. G. Good God ! Can’t you leave that 
letter alone, or, at least, can’t you refrain from 
reading it aloud? I’ve been through it once. 
Put it back on the desk. Do you hear me ? 


FATIMA 


113 


Mrs. G. {Irresolutely.) I sh — sha’n’t! 
{Looks at G.’s eyes.) Oh, Pip, please! I didn't 
mean to make you angry — 'Deed, I didn't. 
Pip, I'm so sorry. I know I've wasted your 
time — 

Capt. G. {Grimly.) You have. Now, will 
you be good enough to go — if there is nothing 
more in my room that you are anxious to pry 
into? 

Mrs. G. {Putting out her hands.) Oh, 
Pip, don't look at me like that ! I've never seen 
you look like that before and it hu-urts me! 
I’m sorry. I oughtn't to have been here at all, 
and — and — and — {sobbing). Oh, be good to 
me I Be good to me ! There's only you — any- 
where I 

Breaks down in long chair, hiding face in 
cushions. 

Capt. G. {Aside.) She doesn't know how 
she flicked me on the raw. {Aloud, bending 
over chair.) I didn’t mean to be harsh, dear — 
I didn't really. You can stay here as long as 
you please, and do what you please. Don’t cry 
like that. You’ll make yourself sick. {Aside.) 
What on earth has come over her? {Aloud.) 
Darling, what’s the matter with you? 

Mrs. G. {Her face still hidden.) Let me 
go — let me go to my own room. Only — only 
say you aren’t angry with me. 


FATIMA 


1 14 

Capt. G. Angry with you^ love ! Of course 
not. I was angry with myself. I’d lost my 
temper over the saddlery — Don’t hide your 
face, Pussy. I want to kiss it. 

Bends lower^ Mrs. G. slides right arm 
round his neck. Several interludes and 
much sobbing. 

Mrs. G. {In a whisper.) I didn’t mean 
about the jam when I came in to tell you — 

Capt. G. Bother the jam and the equip- 
ment. ( Interlude . ) 

Mrs. G. {Still more faintly.) My finger 
wasn’t scalded at all. I — I wanted to speak to 
you about — about — something else, and — I 
didn’t know how. 

Capt. G. Speak away, then. {Looking into 
her eyes.) Eh! Wha — at? Minnie! Here, 
don’t go away! You don’t mean? 

Mrs. G. {Hysterically, backing to portiere 
and hiding her face in its folds.) The — the 
Almost Inevitable Consequences! {Flits 
through portiere as G. attempts to catch her, 
and bolts herself in her own room.) 

Capt. G. {His arms full of portiere.) Oh! 
{Sitting down heavily in chair.) I’m a brute 
— a pig — a bully, and a blackguard. My poor, 
poor little darling! “Made to be amused 
only?”— 


♦ 


THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 


/ 





THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 

Knowing Good and Evil. 

Scene. — The Gadsbys" bungalow in the 
Plains, in June. Punkah-coolies asleep in 
veranda where Captain Gadsby is walking 
up and down. Doctor'’s trap in porch. 
Junior Chaplain drifting generally and 
uneasily through the house. Time, 3.40 a. 
M. Heat 94“ in veranda. 

Doctor. {Coming into veranda and touch- 
ing G. on the shoulder.) You had better go in 
and see her now. 

Capt. G. {The color of good cigar-ash.) 
Eh, wha-at? Oh, yes, of course. What did 
you say? 

Doctor. {Syllable by syllable.) Go — in — to 
— the — room — and — see — her. She wants to 
speak to you. {Aside, testily.) I shall have 
him on my hands next. 

Junior Chaplain. {In half-light ed dining- 
room.) Isn’t there any? — 

Doctor. {Savagely.) Hsh, you little fool! 
Junior Chaplain. Let me do my work. 
Gadsby, stop a minute! {Edges after G.) 

117 


ii8 


THE VALLEY OF 


Doctor. Wait till she sends for you at least 
— at least. Man alive, he’ll kill you if you go 
in there! What are you bothering him for? 

Junior Chaplain. {Coming into ve^- 
randa.) I’ve given him a stiff brandy-peg. 
He wants it. You’ve forgotten him for the 
last ten hours and — forgotten yourself too. 

G. enters bedroom, which is lit by one 
night-lamp. Ayah on the door pre- 
tending to be asleep. 

Voice. {From the bed.) All down the 
street — such bonfires ! Ayah, go and put them 
out! {Appealingly.) How can I sleep with 
an installation of the C.I.E. in my room? No 
— not C.I.E. Something else. What was it? 

Capt. G. {Trying to control his voice.) 
Minnie, I’m here. {Bending over bed.) Don’t 
you know me, Minnie? It’s me — it’s Phil — 
it’s your husband. 

Voice. {Mechanically.) It’s me — it’s Phil 
— it’s your husband. 

Capt. G. She doesn’t know me! — It’s 
your own husband, darling. 

Voice. Your own husband, darling. 

Ayah. {With an inspiration.) Memsahib 
understanding all I saying. 

Capt. G. Make her understand me then — 
quick ! 



Copyright, 1909, by The Edinburgh Society 



I 


THE SHADOW 


1 19 

Ayah. {Hand on Mrs. G.*s forehead.) 
Memsahib! Captain Sahib here. 

Voice. Salam do. {Fretfully.) I know 
Fm not fit to be seen. 

Ayah. {Aside to G.) Say '^marneen*' same 
as breakfash. 

Capt. G. Good-morning, little woman. 
How are we to-day? 

Voice. That's Phil. Poor old Phil. {Vi- 
ciously. ) Phil, you fool, I can’t see you: Come 
nearer. 

Capt. G. Minnie! Minnie! It’s me — you 
know me? 

Voice. {Mockingly.) Of course I do. 
Who does not know the man who was so cruel 
to his wife — almost the only one he ever had? 

Capt. G. Yes, dear. Yes — of course, of 
course. But won’t you speak to him? He 
wants to speak to you so much. 

Voice. They’d never let him in. The Doc- 
tor would give darwaza bund even if he were 
in the house. He’ll never come. {Despair- 
ingly.) O Judas! Judas! Judas! 

Capt. G. {Putting out his arms.) They 
have let him in, and he always was in the 
house. Oh, my love — don’t you know me? 

Voice. {In a half chant.) ‘‘And it came to 
pass at the eleventh hour that this poor soul 


120 


THE VALLEY OF 


repented/’ It knocked at the gates, but they 
were shut — tight as a plaster — a great, burn- 
ing plaster. They had pasted our marriage 
certificate all across the door, and it was made 
of red-hot iron — people really ought to be 
more careful, you know. 

Capt. G. What am I to do? {Takes her 
in his arms.) Minnie! speak to me — to Phil. 

Voice. What shall I say? Oh, tell me 
what to say before it’s too late ! They are all 
going away and I can’t say anything. 

Capt. G. Say you know me! Only say 
you know me! 

Doctor. {Who has entered quietly.) For 
pity’s sake don’t take it too much to heart, 
Gadsby. It’s this way sometimes. They won’t 
recognize. They say all sorts of queer things 
— don’t you see? 

Capt. G. All right! All right! Go away 
now; she’ll recognize me; you’re bothering 
her. She must — mustn’t she? 

Doctor. She will before — Have I your 
leave to try? — 

Capt. G. Anything you please, so long as 
she’ll know me. It’s only a question of — 
hours, isn’t it? 

Doctor. {Professionally.) While there’s 
life there’s hope, y’know. But don’t build on 
it. 


THE SHADOW 


I2I 


Capt. G. I don’t Pull her together if it’s 
possible. (Aside.) What have I done to de- 
serve this? 

Doctor. (Bending over bed.) Now, Mrs. 
Gadsby ! We shall be all right to-morrow. 
You must take it, or I sha’n’t let Phil see you. 
It isn’t nasty, is it? 

Voice. Medicines! Always more medi- 
cines ! Can’t you leave me alone ? 

Capt. G. Oh, leave her in peace. Doc! 

Doctor. (Stepping hack^ — aside.) May I 
be forgiven if I’ve done wrong. (Aloud.) In 
a few minutes she ought to be sensible; but I 
daren’t tell you to look for anything. It’s 
only — 

Capt. G. What? Go on, man. 

Doctor. (In a whisper.) Forcing the last 
rally. 

Capt. G. Then leave us alone. 

Doctor. Don’t mind what she says at first, 
if you can. They — they — they turn against 
those they love most sometimes in this. — It’s 
hard, but — 

^Capt. G. Am I her husband or are you? 
Leave us alone for what time we have to- 
gether. 

Voice. (Conddentially.) And we were en- 
aged quite suddenly, Emma. I assure you 


122 


THE VALLEY OF 


that I never thought of it for a moment; but, 
oh, my little Me ! — I don’t know what I should 
have done if he hadn't proposed. 

Capt. G. She thinks of that Deercourt girl 
before she thinks of me. {Aloud.) Minnie! 

Voice. Not from the shops, Mummy dear. 
You can get the real leaves from Kaintu, and 
{laughing weakly) never mind about the blos- 
soms — Dead white silk is only fit for widows, 
and I won't wear it. It’s as bad as a winding 
sheet. {A long pause.) 

Capt. G. I never asked a favor yet. If 
there is anybody to listen to me, let her know 
me — even if I die too! 

Voice. {Very faintly.) Pip, Pip dear. 

Capt. G. I’m here, darling. 

Voice. What has happened? They’ve 
been bothering me so with medicines and 
things, and they wouldn’t let you come and 
see me. I was never ill before. Am I ill now ? 

Capt. G. You — you aren’t quite well. 

Voice. How funny! Have I been ill long? 

Capt. G. Some days ; but you’ll be all right 
in a little time. 

Voice. Do you think so, Pip? I don’t feel 
well and — Oh! what have they done to my 
hair? 

Capt. G. I d-d-don’t know. 


THE SHADOW 


123 


Voice. They’ve cut it off. What a shame! 

Capt. G. It must have been to make your 
head cooler. 

Voice. Just like a boy’s wig. Don’t I look 
horrid ? 

Capt. G. Never looked prettier in your 
life, dear. (Aside.) How am I to ask her to 
say good-bye? 

Voice. I don’t feel pretty. I feel very ill. 
My heart won’t work. It’s nearly dead inside 
me, and there’s a funny feeling in my eyes. 
Everything seems the same distance — you and 
the almirah and the table — inside my eyes or 
miles away. What does it mean, Pip? 

Capt. G. You’re a little feverish. Sweet- 
heart — very feverish. (Breaking down.) My 
love ! my love ! How can I let you go ? 

Voice. I thought so. Why didn’t you tell 
me that at first? 

Capt. G. What ? 

Voice. That I am going to — die. 

Capt. G. But you aren’t ! You sha’n’t. 

Ayah to punkah-coolie. (Stepping into ve^ 
randa after a glance at the bed.) Punkah chor 
do! (Stop pulling the punkah.) 

Voice. It’s hard, Pip. So very, very hard 
after one year — just one year. (Wailing.) 
And I’m only twenty. Most girls aren’t even 


124 


THE VALLEY OF 


married at twenty. Can’t they do anything to 
help me? I don’t want to die. 

Capt. G. Hush, dear. You won’t. 

Voice. What’s the use of talking? Help 
me! You’ve never failed me yet. Oh, Phil, 
help me to keep alive. {Feverishly.) I don’t 
believe you wish me to live. You weren’t a 
bit sorry when that horrid Baby thing died. 
I wish I’d killed it ! 

Capt. G. {Drawing his hand across his 
forehead.) It’s more than a man’s meant to 
bear — it’s not right. {Aloud.) Minnie, love, 
I’d die for you if it would help. 

Voice. No more death. There’s enough 
already. Pip, don’t you die too. 

Capt. G. I wish I cjared. 

Voice. It says: “Till Death do us part.” 
Nothing after that — and so it would be no use. 
It stops at the dying. Why does it stop there? 
Only such a very short life,, too. Pip, I’m 
sorry we married. 

Capt. G. No ! Anything but that, Min ! 

Voice. Because you’ll forget and I’ll for- 
get. Oh, Pip, don't forget. I always loved 
you, though I was cross sometimes. If I ever 
did anything that you didn’t like, say you for- 
give me now. 

Capt. G. You never did, darling. On my 


THE SHADOW 


125 

soul and honor you never did. I haven’t a 
thing to forgive you. 

Voice. I sulked for a whole week about 
those petunias. {With a laugh,) What a little 
wretch I was, and how grieved you were! 
Forgive me that, Pip. 

Capt. G. There’s nothing to forgive. It 
was my fault. They were too near the drive. 
For God’s sake don’t talk so, Minnie! 
There’s such a lot to say and so little time to 
say it in. 

Voice. Say that you’ll always love me — 
until the end. 

Capt. G. Until the end. {Carried away.)' 
It’s a lie. It must be, because we’ve loved each 
other. This isn’t the end. 

Voice. {Relapsing into semi-delirium.)’ 
My Church-service has an ivory-cross on the 
back, and it says so, so it must be true. 'Till 
Death do us part.” — But that’s a lie. {With a 
parody of G.’s manner.) A damned lie! 
{Recklessly.) Yes, I can swear as well as 
Trooper Pip. I can’t make my head think, 
though. That’s because they cut off my hair. 
How can one think with one’s head all fuzzy? 
{Pleadingly.) Hold me, Pip! Keep me with 
you always and always. {Relapsing.) But if 
you marry the Thorniss girl when I’m dead. 


126 


THE VALLEY OF 


ril come back and howl under our bedroom 
window all night. Oh, bother! You’ll think 
I’m a jackal. Pip, what time is it? 

Capt. G. a little before the dawn, dear. 

Voice. I wonder where I shall be this time 
to-morrow ? 

Capt. G. Would you like to see the Padre? 

Voice. Why should I? He’d tell me that 
I am going to heaven; and that wouldn’t be 
true, because you are here. Do you recollect 
when he upset the cream-ice all over his trous- 
ers at the Gassers’ tennis? 

Capt. G. Yes, dear. 

Voice. I often wondered whether he got 
another pair of trousers; but then his are so 
shiny all over that you really couldn’t tell un- 
less you were told. Let’s call him in and ask. 

Capt. G. {Gravely.) No. I don’t think 
he’d like that. ’Your head comfy. Sweetheart? 

Voice. {Faintly with a sigh of content- 
ment.) Yeth! Gracious, Pip, when did you 
shave last? Your chin’s worse than the barrel 
of a musical box. — No, don’t lift it up. I like 
it. {A pause.) You said you’ve never cried 
at all. You’re crying all over my cheek. 

Capt. G. I — I — I can’t help it, dear. 

Voice. How funny I I couldn’t cry now to 
save my life. (G, shivers.) 1 want to sing. 


THE SHADOW 


127 


Capt. G. Won’t it tire you? ’Better not, 
perhaps. 

Voice. Why? I won’t be bothered about. 
{Begins in a hoarse quaver ) : — 


“Minnie bakes oaten cake, Minnie brews ale, 

All because her Johnnie’s coming home from the sea. 

(That’s parade, Pip.) 

And she grows red as rose, who was so pale; 

And ‘Are you sure the church-clock goes?’ says she.” 

{Pettishly.) I knew I couldn’t take the last 
note. How do the bass chords run? {Puts 
out her hands and begins playing piano on the 
sheet. ) 

Capt. G. {Catching up hands.) Ahh! 
Don’t do that, Pussy, if you love me. 

Voice. Love you? Of course I do. Who 
else should it be? {A pause.) 

Voice. {Very clearly.) Pip, Pm going 
now. Something’s choking me cruelly. {In- 
distinctly.) Into the dark — without you, my 
heart. — But it’s a lie, dear — we mustn’t believe 
it. — Forever and ever, living or dead. Don’t 
let me go, my husband — hold me tight. — They 
can’t — whatever happens. {A cough.) Pip — 
my Pip! Not for always — and — so — soon! 
{Voice ceases.) 

Pause of ten minutes, G. buries his face 
in the side of the bed while Ayah 


128 


THE VALLEY OF 


bends over bed from opposite side and 
feels Mrs. G.’s breast and forehead. 

Capt. G. {Rising.) Doctor Sahib ko 
salaam do. 

Ayah. {Sdll by bedside^ with a shriek.) 
Ai! Ai! Tuta — phuta! My Memsahib! Not 
getting — not have got! — Pusseena agva! (The 
sweat has come.) {Fiercely to G.) Tum 
jao Doctor Sahib ko jaldi! {You go to the 
doctor.) Oh, my Memsahib! 

Doctor. {Entering hastily.) Come away, 
Gadsby. {Bends over bed.) Eh! the Dev — 
What inspired you to stop the punkah? Get 
out, man — go — away — wait outside! Go! 
Here, Ayah ! ( Over his shoulder to G. ) Mind 
I promise nothing. 

The dazvn breaks as G. stumbles into the 
garden. 

Capt. M. {Reining up at the gate on his 
zvay to parade and very soberly.) Old man, 
how goes? 

Capt. G. {Dazed.) I don’t quite know. 
Stay a bit. Have a drink or something. Don’t 
runaway. You’re just getting amusing. Ha! 
Ha! 

Capt. M. {Aside.) What am I let in for? 
Gaddy has aged ten years in the night. 

Capt. G. {Sozvly, -fingering charger's head- 
stall.) Your curb’s too loose. 


THE SHADOW 


129 


Capt. M. So it is. Put it straight, will 
you? {Aside.) I shall be late for parade. Poor 
Gaddy. 

Capt. G. links and unlinks curb-chain 
aimlessly, and finally stands staring to- 
ward the veranda. The day brightens. 

Doctor. {Knocked out of professional 
gravity, tramping across flower-beds and 
shaking G.’s hands.) It’s — it’s — it’s — Gadsby 
there’s a fair chance — a dashed fair chance! 
The flicker, y’know. The sweat, y’know! I 
saw how it would be. The punkah, y’know. 
Deuced clever woman that Ayah of yours. 
Stopped the punkah just at the right time. A 
dashed good chance! No — you don’t go in. 
We’ll pull her through yet I promise on my 
reputation — under Providence. Send a man 
with this note to Bingle. Two heads better 
than one. ’Specially the Ayah! We'll pull her 
round. {Retreats hastily to house.) 

Capt. G. {His head on neck of M.’s 
charger.) Jack! I bub — bub — ^believe. I’m go- 
ing to make a bub — ^bub — ^bloody exhibitiod 
of by self. 

Capt. M. {Sniffing openly and feeling in 
his left cuff.) I b-b — believe, I’b doing it al- 
ready. Old bad, what cad I say? Pb as 
pleased as — Cod dab you, Gaddy ! You’re one 


130 


THE VALLEY OF 


big idiot and Fb adother. {Pulling himself 
together. ) Sit tight ! Here comes the Devil- 
dodger, 

Junior Chaplain. {Who is not in the 
Doctor's confidence.) We — we are only men 
in these things, Gadsby. I know that I can say 
nothing now to help — 

Capt. M. {Jealously.) Then don’t say it! 
Leave him alone. It’s not bad enough to 
croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to 
Single and ride hell-for-leather. It’ll do you 
good. I can’t go. 

Junior Chaplain. Do him good! {Smil- 
ing. ) Give me the chit and I’ll drive. Let him 
lie down. Your horse is blocking my cart — 
please! 

Capt. M. {Slowly without reining hack.) I 
beg your pardon — I’ll apologize. On paper if 
you like. 

Junior Chaplain. {Flicking M.’s charger.) 
That’ll do, thanks. Turn in, Gadsby, and I’ll 
bring Single back — ahem — ^Tell-for-leather.” 

Capt. M. {Solus.) It would have served 
me right if he’d cut me across the face. He 
can drive too. I shouldn’t care to go that pace 
in a bamboo cart. What a faith he must have 
in his Maker — of harness! Come hup, you 
brute! {Gallops oif to parade, blowing his 
nose, as the sun rises . ) 


THE SHADOW 


131 


(interval of five weeks.) 

Mrs. G. (Very white and pinched, in morn- 
ing wrapper at breakfast table.) How big and 
strange the room looks, and oh how glad I 
am to see it again! What dust, though! I 
must talk to the servants. Sugar, Pip? Fve 
almost forgotten. (Seriously.) Wasn’t I 
very ill ? 

Capt. G. Iller than I liked. (Tenderly.) 
Oh, you bad little Pussy, what a start you 
gave me! 

Mrs. G. I’ll never do it again. 

Capt. G. You’d better not. And now get 
those poor pale cheeks pink again, or I shall 
be angry. Don’t try to lift the urn. You’ll 
upset it. Wait. (Comes round to head of ta- 
ble and lifts urn.) 

Mrs. G. (Quickly.) Khitmatgar, boivarchi- 
khana see kettly lao. Butler, get a kettle from 
the cook-house. (Drawing down G.’s face to 
her own.) Pip dear, I remember. 

Capt. G. What ? 

Mrs. G. That last terrible night. 

Capt. G. Then just you forget all about it. 

Mrs. G. (Softly, her eyes -filling.) Never. 
It has brought us very close together, my hus- 
band. There! (Interlude.) I’m going to give 
Junda a saree. 


132 


THE VALLEY OF 


Capt. G. I gave her fifty dibs. 

Mrs. G. So she told me. It was a ’nor- 
mous reward. Was I worth it? {Several in- 
terludes.) Don’t! Here’s the khitmatgar . — 
Two lumps or one, Sir? 


THE SWELLING OF JORDAN 











THE SWELLING OF JORDAN 


If thou hast run with the footmen and they have 
wearied thee, how canst thou contend with horses? And 
if in the land of peace wherein thou trustedst they 
wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of 
Jordan? 

Scene. — The Gadsbys^ bungalow in the 

Plains, on a January morning, Mrs. G. ar- 
guing with bearer in back veranda. 

Capt. M. rides up. 

Capt. M. ’Morning, Mrs. Gadsby. How’s 
the Infant Phenomenon and the Proud Pro- 
prietor? 

Mrs. G. You’ll find them in the front ve- 
randa; go through the house. I’m Martha 
just now. 

Capt. M. ’Cumbered about with cares of 
khitmatgars? I fly. 

Passes into front veranda, where Gadsby 
is watching Gadsby Junior, aged ten 
months, crawling about the matting. 

Capt. M. What’s the trouble, Gaddy — 
spoiling an honest man’s Europe morning this 
way? {Seeing G. Junior.) By Jove, that 
135 


136 


THE SWELLING 


yearling's cornin' on amazingly! Any amount 
of bone below the knee there. 

Capt. G. Yes, he's a healthy little scoun- 
drel. Don’t you think his hair’s growing? 

M. Let’s have a look. Hi! Hst! Come 
here, General Luck, and we’ll report on you. 

Mrs. G. {Within.) What absurd name will 
you give him next? Why do you call him 
that? 

M. Isn't he our Inspector-General of Cav- 
alry ? Doesn't he come down in his seventeen- 
two perambulator every morning the Pink 
Hussars parade? Don’t wriggle, Brigadier. 
Give us your private opinion on the way the 
third squadron went past. ’Trifle ragged, 
weren’t they ? 

G. A bigger set of tailors than the new 
draft I don’t wish to see. They’ve given me 
more than my fair share — ^knocking the squad- 
ron out of shape. It’s sickening! 

M. When you’re in command, you’ll do 
better, young ’un. Can’t you walk yet? Grip 
my finger and try. {To G.) ’Twon’t hurt his 
hocks, will it? 

G. Oh, no. Don’t let him flop, though, or 
he’ll lick all the blacking ofiF your boots. 

Mrs. G. {Within.) Who’s destroying my 
son’s character? 


OF JORDAN 


137 


M. And my Godson’s. Fm ashamed of 
you, Gaddy. Punch your father in the eye, 
Jack! Don’t you stand it! Hit him again! 

G. (Sotto voce.) Put The Butcha down 
and come to the end of the veranda. I’d rather 
the Wife didn’t hear — just now. 

M. You look awf’ly serious. Anything 
wrong? 

G. ’Depends on your view entirely. I say. 
Jack, you won’t think more hardly of me than 
you can help, will you? Come further this 
way. — The fact of the matter is, that I’ve 
made up my mind — at least I’m thinking se- 
riously of — cutting the Service. 

M. Hwhatt ? 

G. Don’t shout. I’m going to send in my 
papers. 

M. You! Are you mad? 

G. No — only married. 

M. Look here! What’s the meaning of it 
all? You never intend to leave Yon can't. 
Isn’t the best squadron of the best regiment of 
the best cavalry in all the world good enough 
for you? 

G. {Jerking his head over his shoulder.) 
She doesn’t seem to thrive in this God-for- 
saken country, and there’s The Butcha to be 
considered and all that, you know. 


138 


THE SWELLING 


M. Does she say that she doesn't like In- 
dia? 

G. That's the worst of it. She won't for 
fear of leaving me. 

M. What are the Hills made for? 

G. Not for my wife, at any rate. 

M. You know too much, Gaddy, and — I 
don't like you any the better for it ! 

G. Never mind that. She wants England, 
and The Butcha would be all the better for it. 
I'm going to chuck. You don't understand. 

M. (Hotly.) I understand this. One hun- 
dred and thirty-seven new horses to be licked 
into shape somehow before Luck comes round 
again; a hairy-heeled draft who'll give more 
trouble than the horses; a camp next cold 
weather for a certainty; ourselves the first on 
the roster; the Russian shindy ready to come 
to a head at five minutes' notice, and you, the 
best of us all, backing out of it all! Think a 
little, Gaddy. You won't do it. 

G. Hang it, a man has some duties toward 
his family, I suppose. 

M. I remember a man, though, who told 
me, the night after Amdheran, when we were 
picketed under Jagai, and he'd left his sword 
— by the way, did you ever pay Ranken for 
that sword ? — in an Utmanzai's head — that 


OF JORDAN 


139 


man told me that he’d stick by me and the 
Pinks as long as he lived. I don’t blame him 
for not sticking by me — Pm not much of a 
man — ^but 1 do blame him for not sticking by 
the Pink Hussars. 

G. {Uneasily.) We were little more than 
boys then. Can’t you see, Jack, how things 
stand? ’Tisn’t as if we were serving for our 
bread. We’ve all of us, more or less, got the 
filthy lucre. Pm luckier than some, perhaps. 
There’s no call for me to serve on. 

M. None in the world for you or for us, 
except the Regimental. If you don’t choose 
to answer to that, of course — 

G. Don’t be too hard on a man. You 
know that a lot of us only take up the thing 
for a few years and then go back to Town and 
catch on with the rest. 

M. Not lots, and they aren’t some of Us. 

G. And then there are one’s affairs at 
Home to be considered — my place and the 
rents, and all that. I don’t suppose my father 
can last much longer, and that means the title, 
and so on. 

M. ’Fraid you won’t be entered in the Stud 
Book correctly unless you go Home? Take 
six months, then, and come out in October. 
If I could slay off a brother or two, I s’pose 


140 


THE SWELLING 


I should be a Marquis of sorts. Any fool can 
be that; but it needs men, Gaddy — men like 
you — to lead flanking squadrons properly. 
Don’t you delude yourself into the belief that 
you’re going Home to take your place and 
prance about among pink-nosed Kabuli dow- 
agers. You aren’t built that way. I know 
better. 

G. A man has a right to live his life as 
happily as he can. You aren’t married. 

M. No — praise be to Providence and the 
one or two women who have had the good 
sense to jawdb me. 

G. Then you don’t know what it is to go 
into your own room and see your wife’s head 
on the pillow, and when everything else is safe 
and the house shut up for the night, to won- 
der whether the roof-beams won’t give and 
kill her. 

M. (Aside.) Revelations first and second! 
(Aloud.) So-o! I knew a man who got 
squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me 
that he never helped his wife on to her horse 
without praying that she’d break her neck be- 
fore she came back. All husbands aren’t alike, 
you see. 

G. What on earth has that to do with my 
case? The man must ha’ been mad, or his 
wife as bad as they make ’em. 


OF JORDAN 


141 

M. (Aside.) ’No fault of yours if either 
weren’t all you say. You’ve forgotten the 
time when you were insane about the Herriott 
woman. You always were a good hand at 
forgetting. (Aloud.) Not more mad than 
men who go to the other extreme. Be reason- 
able, Gaddy. Your roof-beams are sound 
enough. 

G. That was only a way of speaking. I’ve 
been uneasy and worried about the Wife ever 
since that awful business three years ago — 
when — I nearly lost her. Can you wonder ? 

M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the 
same place. You’ve paid your toll to misfor- 
tune — why should your Wife be picked out 
more than anybody else’s? 

G. I can talk just as reasonably as you 
can, but you don’.t understand — you don’t un- 
derstand. And then there’s The Butcha. 
Deuce knows where the Ayah takes him to sit 
in the evening! He has a bit of a cough. 
Haven’t you noticed it? 

M. Bosh! The Brigadier’s jumping out 
of his skin with pure condition. He’s got a 
muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a two- 
year-old. What’s demoralized you? 

G. Funk. That’s the long and the short 
of it. Funk! 


142 


THE SWELLING 


M. But what is there to funk? 

G. Everything. It’s ghastly. 

M. Ah! I see. 

You don’t want to fight, 

And by Jingo when we do, 

You’ve got the kid, you’ve got the Wife, 

You’ve got the money, too. 

That’s about the case, eh? 

G. I suppose that’s it. But it’s not for my- 
self. It’s because of them. At least I think 
it is. 

M. Are you sure? Looking at the matter 
in a cold-blooded light, the Wife is provided 
for even if you were wiped out to-night. She 
has an ancestral home to go to, money, and 
the Brigadier to carry on the illustrious name. 

G. Then it is for myself or because they 
are part of me. You don’t see it. My life’s so 
good, so pleasant, as it is, that I want to make 
it quite safe. Can’t you understand? 

M. Perfectly. “Shelter-pit for the Orf’- 
cer’s charger,” as they say in the Line. 

G. And I have everything to my hand to 
make it so. I’m sick of the strain and the 
worry for their sakes out here ; and there isn’t 
a single real difficulty to prevent my dropping 
it altogether. It’ll only cost me — Jack, I hope 


OF JORDAN 


143 

you’ll never know the shame that I’ve been 
going through for the past six months. 

M. Hold on there! I don’t wish to be 
told. Every man has his moods and tenses 
sometimes. 

G. {Laughing bitterly.) Has he? What 
do you call craning over to see where your 
near-fore lands? 

M. In my case it means that I have been 
on the Considerable Bend, and have come to 
parade with a Head and a Hand. It passes in 
three strides. 

G. {Lowering voice.) It never passes with 
me, Jack. I’m always thinking about it. Phil 
Gadsby funking a fall on parade! Sweet pic- 
ture, isn’t it ! Draw it for me. 

M. {Gravely.) Heaven forbid! A man 
like you can’t be as bad as that. A fall is no 
nice thing, but one never gives it a thought. 

G. Doesn’t one? Wait till you’ve got a 
wife and a youngster of your own, and then 
you’ll know how the roar of the squadron be- 
hind you turns you cold all up the back. 

M. {Aside.) And this man led at Amd- 
heran after Bagal-Deasin went under, and we 
were all mixed up together and he came out 
of the show dripping like a butcher. {Aloud.) 
Skittles! The men can always open out, and 


144 


THE SWELLING 


you can always pick your way more or less. 
We haven’t the dust to bother us, as the men 
have, and whoever heard of a horse stepping 
on a man? 

G. Never — as long as he can see. But did 
they open out for poor Errington? 

M. Oh, this is childish ! 

G. I know it is, worse than that. I don’t 
care. You’ve ridden Van Loo. Is he the sort 
of brute to pick his way — ’specially when 
we’re coming up in column of troop with any 
pace .on ? 

M. Once in a Blue Moon do we gallop in 
column of troop, and then only to save time. 
Aren’t three lengths enough for you? 

G. Yes — quite enough. They just allow 
for the full development of the smash. I’m 
talking like a cur, I know : but I tell you that, 
for the past three months. I’ve felt every hoof 
of the squadron in the small of my back every 
time that I’ve led. 

M. But, Gaddy, this is awful! 

G. Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it royal? A Cap- 
tain of the Pink Hussars watering up his 
charger before parade like the blasted boozing 
Colonel of a Black Regiment! 

M. You never did ! 

G. Once only. He squelched like a mus~ 


OF JORDAN 


145 


suckj and the Troop-Sergeant-Major cocked 
his eye at me. You know old Haffy’s eye. I 
was afraid to do it again. 

M. I should think so. That was the best 
way to rupture old Van Loo’s tummy, and 
make him crumple you up. You knezv that. 

G. I didn’t care. It took the edge off him. 

M. “Took the edge off him”? Gaddy, you 
— ^you — you mustn't, you know! Think of 
the men. 

G. That’s another thing I am afraid of. 
D’you s’pose they know? 

M. Let’s hope not; but they’re deadly 
quick to spot skrim — little things of that kind. 
See here, old man, send the Wife Home for 
the hot weather and come to Kashmir with 
me. We’ll start a boat on the Dal or cross the 
Rhotang — shoot ibex or loaf — which you 
please. Only come! You’re a bit off your 
oats and you’re talking nonsense. Look at the 
Colonel — swag-bellied rascal that he is. He 
has a wife and no end of a bow-window of his 
own. Can any one of us ride round him — 
chalkstones and all ? I can’t, and I think I can 
shove a crock along a bit. 

G. Some men are different. I haven’t the 
nerve. Lord help me, I haven’t the nerve! 
I’ve taken up a hole and a half to get my 


146 


THE SWELLING 


knees well under the wallets. I can’t help it. 
Fm so afraid of anything happening to me. 
On my soul, I ought to be broke in front of 
the squadron, for cowardice. 

M. Ugly word, that. I should never have 
the courage to own up. 

G. I meant to lie about my reasons when 
I began, but — Fve got out of the habit of ly- 
ing to you, old man. Jack, you won’t? — But 
I know you won’t, 

M. Of course not. {Half aloud.) The 
Pinks are paying dearly for their Pride. 

G. Eh! Wha-at? 

M. Don’t you know ? The men have 
called Mrs. Gadsby the Pride of the Pink 
Hussars ever since she came to us. 

G. ’Tisn’t her fault. Don’t think that. It’s 
all mine. 

M. What does she say? 

G. I haven’t exactly put it before her. 
She’s the best little woman in the world. Jack, 
and all that — but she wouldn’t counsel a man 
to stick to his calling if it came between him 
and her. At least, I think — 

M. Never mind. Don’t tell her what you 
told me. Go on the Peerage and Landed-Gen- 
try tack. 

G. She’d see through it. She’s five times 
cleverer than I am. 


OF JORDAN 


147 


M. (Aside.) Then she’ll accept the sac- 
rifice and think a little bit worse of him for 
the rest of her days. 

G. (Absently.) I say, do you despise me? 

M. ’Queer way of putting it. Have you 
ever been asked that question? Think a min- 
ute. What answer used you to give ? 

G. So bad as that? I’m not entitled to ex- 
pect anything more, but it’s a bit hard when 
one’s best friend turns round and — 

M. So I have found. But you will have 
consolations — BailifYs and Drains and Liquid 
Manure and the Primrose League, and, per- 
haps, if you’re lucky, the Colonelcy of a Yeo- 
manry Cav-al-ry Regiment — all uniform 
and no riding, I believe. How old are you? 

G. Thirty-three. I know it’s — 

M. At forty you’ll be a fool of a J. P. 
landlord. At fihy you’ll own a bath-chair, 
and The Bridadier, if he takes after you, will 
be fluttering the dovecotes of — what’s the par- 
ticular dunghill you’re going to? Also, Mrs. 
Gadsby will be fat. 

G. (Limply.) This is rather more than a 
joke. 

M. D’you think so? Isn’t cutting the Ser- 
vice a joke? It generally takes a man fifty 
years to arrive at it. You’re quite right. 


148 


THE SWELLING 


though. It is more than a joke. YouVe 
managed it in thirty-three. 

G. Don’t make me feel worse than I do. 
Will it satisfy you if I own that I am a 
shirker, a skrim-shanker, and a coward? 

M. It will notj because Fm the only man 
in the world who can talk to you like this 
without being knocked down. You mustn’t 
take all that I’ve said to heart in this way. I 
only spoke — a lot of it at least — out of pure 
selfishness, because, because — Oh, damn it 
all, old man, — I don’t know what I shall do 
without you. Of course, you’ve got the 
money and the place and all that — and there 
are two very good reasons why you should 
take care of yourself. 

G. ’Doesn’t make it any the sweeter. I’m 
backing out — I know I am. I always had a 
soft drop in me somewhere — and I daren’t 
risk any danger to them. 

M. Why in the world should you ? You’re 
bound to think of your family — bound to 
think. Er-hmm. If I wasn’t a younger son 
I’d go too — be shot if I wouldn’t! 

G. Thank you. Jack. It’s a kind lie, but 
it’s the blackest you’ve told for some time. I 
know what I’m doiyig, and I’m going into it 
with my eyes open. Old man, I can’t help it. 
What would you do if you were in my place? 


OF JORDAN 


149 


M. (Aside.) ’Couldn’t conceive any 
woman getting permanently between me and 
the Regiment. (Aloud.) ’Can’t say. ’Very 
likely I should do no better. I’m sorry for 
you — awf’ly sorry — ^but ‘*if them’s your senti- 
ments,” I believe, I really do, that you are act- 
ing wisely. 

G. Do you? I hope you do. (In a zvhis- 
per.) Jack, be very sure of yourself before 
you marry. I’m an ungrateful ruffian to say 
this, but marriage — even as good a marriage 
as mine has been — hampers a man’s work, it 
cripples his sword-arm, and oh, it plays Hell 
with his notions of duty! Sometimes — good 
and sweet as she is — sometimes I could wish 
that I had kept my freedom — No, I don’t 
mean that exactly. 

Mrs. G. (Coming down veranda.) What 
are you wagging your head over, Pip? 

M. (Turning quickly.) Me, as usual. The 
old sermon. Your husband is recommending 
me to get married. ’Never saw such a one- 
ideaed man! 

Mrs. G. Well, why don’t you? I dare say 
you would make some woman very happy. 

G. There’s the Law and the Prophets, 
Jack. Never mind the Regiment. Make a 
woman happy. (Aside.) O Lord! 


THE SWELLING 


150 

M. We’II see. I must be off to make a 
Troop Cook desperately unhappy. I won’t 
have the wily Hussar fed on Government Bul- 
lock Train shinbones — (Hastily.) Surely 
black ants can’t be good for The Brigadier. 
He’s picking ’em off the matting and eating 
’em. Here, Senor Comandante Don Grubby- 
nose, come and talk to me. (Lifts G. Junior 
in his arms.) ’Want my watch? You won’t 
be able to put it into your mouth, but you can 
try. (G. Junior drops watch, breaking dial 
and hands.) 

Mrs. G. Oh, Captain Mafiflin, I am so 
sorry! Jack, you bad, bad little villain. Ahhh! 

M. It’s not the least consequence, I assure 
you. He’d treat the world in the same way 
if he could get it into his hands. Everything’s 
made to be played with and broken, isn’t it, 
young ’un? 

♦ ♦ * * 5|e ?|e 

Mrs. G. Mafiflin didn’t at all like his watch 
being broken, though he was too polite to say 
so. It was entirely his fault for giving it to 
the child. Dem little puds are werry, werry 
feeble aren’t dey, my Jack-in-de-box? (To G.) 
What did he want to see you for? 

G. Regimental shop as usual. 


OF JORDAN 


151 

Mrs. G. The Regiment! Always the Regi- 
men. On my word, I sometimes feel jealous 
of Mafflin. 

G. {Wearily.) Poor old Jack? I don’t 
think you need. Isn’t it time for The Butcha 
to have his nap? Bring a chair out here, 
dear. I’ve got something to talk over with 
you. 


And this is the End of the Story of the 
Gadsbys. 









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THE DEDICATION 


T O MY MOFT DEARE FATHER, When I 

was in your Hotife and we went abroade 
together, in the outskirtes of the Citie, among 
the Gentoo Wreftlours, you had poynted me 
how in all Empryzes he gooing forth flang 
backe alwaies a Word to hym that had infruct 
hym in his Crafte to the better Sneckynge of a 
Victorie or at the leafte the auoidance of 
anie greate Defeate : And prefentlie each man 
wolde run to his Vftad (which is as we 
shoulde fay M after) and geat fuch as he de- 
ferued of Admonefhment, Reprouf and Coun- 
cil, concernynge the Gripp, the Houlde, Crofs- 
buttock and Fall, and then lay to afrefhe. 

In lyke maner I, drawynge back a lytel, 
from this my Rabble and Encompafment of 
Labor, have runn afyde to you who were euer 
my Vftad and Speake as it were in your priuie 
Eare [yet that others may knowe] that if I 
have here done aught of Faire Crafte and 
Reverentiall it is come from your hande as 
trewly [but by i. Degree remouen] as though 
it had been the coperture of thys Booke that 

155 


THE DEDICATION 


156 

you haue made for me in loue. How may I 
here tell of that Tender Diligence which in my 
waiierynge and inconftante viages was in all 
tymes about me to showe the pafsions and Oc- 
cafions, Shifts, Humors, and Sports that in 
due proporcion combinate haue bred that 
Rare and Terrible Myftery the which, for 
lacke of a more compleat Venderftandinge, 
the Worlde has cauled Man: aswel the manner 
in which you shoulde goo about to pourtraie 
the same, a lytel at a tyme in Feare and De- 
cencie. By what hand, when I wolde have 
dabbled a Greene and unvefed Pen in all 
Earthe Heauen and Hell, bicaufe of the piti- 
ful Confidence of Youthe, was I bounde in 
and reftrict to wayte tyl I coulde in fome fort 
difcerne from the Shadowe, that is not by any 
peynes to be toucht, the small Kernel and Sub- 
ftance that mighte conforme to the sclender- 
nefs of my Capacitie. All thys and other 
Council (that, though I dyd then not followe, 
Tyme hath since fadlie prouen trewe) is my 
unpayable Debt to you (moft deare Father) 
and for marke I have set afide for you, if you 
will take it, thys my thirde Booke. The more 
thys and no other fenfe it is of common 
knowledge that Men. do rather efteem a Peb- 
ble gathered under the Burnynge Lyne (or 


THE DEDICATION 


157 


anie place that they haue gone farr to travel 
in) then the Pane-way of theyr ownie Citie, 
though that may be the better wrought. Your 
Charitie and the large Tendernefs that I haue 
nowhere founde fenfe I haue gone from your 
Houfe shall look upon it fauorably and ouer- 
pafs the Blemyfhes, Spottes, Foul Crafte, and 
Maculations that do as thoroughly marke it as 
anie Toil of Me. None the lefs it is fett pre- 
fomptuoufly before that Wilde Beafte the 
Publick which, though when aparte and one by 
one examined is but compoft of such meere 
Men and Women as you in theyr outwarde 
form peynt and I would fayne peynt in theyr 
workynges. yet in totalitie, is a Great and 
thanklefse God (like unto Dagon) upon whofe 
Altars a man muft offer of his Befte alone of 
the Prieftes (which they caul Reuiewers) pack 
him emptie awai. If I faile in thys Seruyce 
you shall take me afyde and giue me more In- 
ftruction, which is but the olde Counfel unre- 
guarded and agayne made playne: As our 
Vftads take hym whofe Nofe is rubben in the 
dyrte and speak in hys Eare. But thys I 
knowe, that if I fail or if I geat my Wage 
from the God aforefayd; and thus dance per- 
petually before that Altar till He be wearyed, 
the Wifdom that made in my Vfe, when I was 


THE DEDICATION 


158 

neere to liften, and the Sweep and Swing tem- 
perate of the Pen that, when I was afarr, gaue 
me alwaies and untyryng the most delectable 
Tillage of that Wifdom shall neuer be lacq- 
ynge to me in Lyfe. 

And though I am more rich herein than 
the riche ft, my prefent Pouertie can but make 
return in thys lytel Booke which your owne 
Toil has nobilitated beyon the deferuynge of 
the Writer your Son. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction i6i 

Dray Wara Yow Dee 167 

The Judgment of Dungara 187 

At Howli Thana 205 

Gemini 217 

At Twenty -Two 235 

In Flood Time 255 

The Sending of Dana Da 277 

On the City Wall 297 



INTRODUCTION 


BY KADIR BAKSH, KHITMATGAR. 

H AZUR, — Through your favor this is a 
book written by my sahib. I know that 
he wrote it, because it was his custom to write 
far into the night; I greatly desiring to go to 
my house. But there was no order; therefore 
it was my fate to sit without the door until the 
work was accomplished. Then came I and 
made shut all the papers in the office-box, and 
these papers, by the peculiar operation of Time 
and owing to the skillful manner in which I 
picked them up from the floor, became such a 
book as you now see. God alone knows what 
is written therein, for I am a poor man and the 
sahib is my father and my mother, and I have 
no concern with his writing until he has left 
his table and gone to bed. 

Nabi Baksh, clerk, says that it is a book 
about the black men — common people. This is 
a manifest lie, for by what road can my sahib 
have acquired knowledge of common people? 
Have I not, for several years, been perpetually 
with the sahib ; and throughout that time have 
I not stood between him and the other servants 
i6i 


INTRODUCTION 


162 

who would persecute him with complaints or 
vex him with idle tales about my work? Did 
I not smite Dunnoo, the groom, only yester- 
day in the matter of the badness of the har- 
ness-composition which I had procured ? I am 
the head of the sahib’s household and hold his 
purse. Without me he does not know where 
are his rupees or his clean collars. So great 
is my power over the sahib and the love that 
he bears to me! Have I ever told the sahib 
about the customs of servants or black men? 
Am I a fool? I have said *Very good talk” 
upon all occasions. I have always cut smooth 
his wristbands with scissors, and timely 
warned him of the passing away of his to- 
bacco that he might not be left smokeless upon 
a Sunday. More than this I have not done. 
The sahib cannot go out to dinner lacking my 
aid. How then should he know aught that I 
did not tell him? Certainly Nabi Baksh is a 
liar. 

None the less this is a book, and the sahib 
wrote it, for his name is in it, and it is not his 
washing-book. Now, such is the wisdom of 
the sahib-log, that, upon opening this thing, 
they will instantly discover the purport. Yet I 
would of their favor beg them to observe how 
correct is the order of the pages, which I have 


INTRODUCTION 


163 


counted, from the first to the last. Thus, One 
is followed by Two and Two by Three, and 
so forward to the end of the book. Even as 
I picked the pages one by one with great trou- 
ble from the floor, when the sahib had gone to 
bed, so have they been placed ; and there is not 
a fault in the whole account. And this is my 
work. It was a great burden, but I accom- 
plished it ; and if the sahib gains honor by that 
which he has written — and God knows what 
he is always writing about — I, Kadir Baksh, 
his servant, also have a claim to honor. 



DRAY WARA YOW DEE 



» 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


For jealousy is the rage of a man; therefore he will 
not spare in the day of vengeance. — Prov. vi. 34. 


LMONDS and raisins, Sahib? Grapes 



JTx. from Kabul ? Or a poney of the rarest if 
the Sahib will only come with me. He is thir- 
teen three, Sahib, plays polo, goes in a cart, 
carries a lady and — Holy Kurshed and the 
Blessed Imams, it is the Sahib himself! My 
heart is made fat and my eye glad. May you 
never be tired! As is cold water in the Tirah, 
so is the sight of a friend in a far place. And 
what do you in this accursed land? South of 
Delhi, Sahib, you know the saying — “Rats are 
the men and trulls the women.” It was an 
order ? Ahoo ! An order is an order till one 
is strong enough to disobey. O my brother, 
O my friend, we have met in an auspicious 
hour ! Is all well in the heart and the body and 
the house? In a lucky day have we two come 
together again. 

I am to go with you? Your favor is great. 
Will there be picket-room in the compound? 


167 


i68 DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


I have three horses and the bundles and the 
horseboy. Moreover, remember that the 
police here hold me a horse-thief. What do 
these Lowland bastards know of horse-thieves ? 
Do you remember that time in Peshawur when 
Kamal hammered on the gates of Jumrud — 
mountebank that he was — and lifted the Colo- 
nel's horses all in one night? Kamal is dead 
now, but his nephew has taken up the matter, 
and there will be more horses amissing if the 
Khaiber Levies do not look to it. 

The Peace of God and the favor of His Pro- 
phet be upon this house and all that is in it! 
Shafizullah, rope the mottled mare under the 
tree and draw water. The horses can stand in 
the sun, but double the felts over the loins. 
Nay, my friend, do not trouble to look them 
over. They are to sell to the Officer fools who 
know so many things of the horse. The mare 
is heavy in foal; the grey is a devil unlicked; 
and the dun — ^but you know the trick of the 
peg. When they are sold I go back to Pubbi, 
or, it may be, the Valley of Peshawur. 

O friend of my heart, it is good to see you 
again. I have been bowing and lying all day to 
the Officer-Sahibs in respect to those horses; 
and my mouth is dry for straight talk. 
Auggrh! Before a meal tobacco is good. Do 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 169 

not join me, for we are not in our own country. 
Sit in the veranda and I will spread my cloth 
here. But first I will drink. In the name of 
God returning thanks j thrice! This is sweet 
water, indeed — sweet as the water of Sheoran 
when it comes from the snows. 

They are all well and pleased in the North 

Khoda Baksh and the others. Yar Khan has 
come down with the horses from Kurdistan — 
six and thirty head only, and a full half pack- 
ponies — and has said openly in the Kashmir 
Serai that you English should send guns and 
blow the Amir into Hell. There are -fifteen 
tolls now on the Kabul road; and at Dakka, 
when he thought he was clear, Yar Khan was 
stripped of all his Balkh stallions by the Gover- 
nor! This is a great injustice, and Yar Khan 
is hot with rage. And of the others : Mahbub 
Ali is still at Pubbi, writing God knows what. 
Tugluq Khan is in jail for the business of the 
Kohat Police Post. Faiz Beg came down from 
Ismail-ki-Dhera with a Bokhariot belt for thee, 
my brother, at the closing of the year, but none 
knew whither thou hadst gone: there was no 
news left behind. The Cousins have taken a 
new run near Pakpattan to breed mules for the 
Government carts, and there is a story in Bazar 
of a priest. Oho ! Such a salt tale ! Listen — 


170 DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


Sahib, why do you ask that ? My clothes are 
fouled because of the dust on the road. My 
eyes are sad because of the glare of the sun. 
My feet are swollen because I have washed 
them in bitter water, and my cheeks are hollow 
because the food here is bad. Fire burn your 
money! What do I want with it? I am rich 
and I thought you were my friend ; but you are 
like the others — a Sahib. Is a man sad ? Give 
him money, say the Sahibs. Is he dishonored ? 
Give him money, say the Sahibs. Hath he a 
wrong upon his head? Give him money, say 
the Sahibs. Such are the Sahibs, and such art 
thou — even thou. 

Nay, do not look at the feet of the dun. 
Pity it is that I ever taught you to know the 
legs of a horse. Footsore? Be it so. What of 
that ? The roads are hard. And the mare 
footsore? She bears a double burden, Sahib. 

And now I pray you, give me permission to 
depart. Great favor and honor has the Sahib 
done me, and graciously has he shown his be- 
lief that the horses are stolen. Will it please 
him to send me to the Thana? To call a 
sweeper and have me led away by one of these 
lizard-men? I am the Sahib's friend. I have 
drunk water in the shadow of his house, and he 
has blackened my face. Remains there any- 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


171 

thing more to do? Will the Sahib give me 
eight annas to make smooth the injury and — 
complete the insult? — 

Forgive me, my brother. I knew not — I 
know not now — what I say. Yes, I lied to 
you ! I will put dust on my head — and I am an 
Afridi ! The horses have been marched foot- 
sore from the Valley to this place, and my eyes 
are dim, and my body aches for the want of 
sleep, and my heart is dried up with sorrow 
and shame. But as it was my shame, so by 
God the Dispenser of Justice — by Allah-al- 
Mumit — it shall be my own revenge ! 

We have spoken together with naked hearts 
before this, and our hands have dipped into the 
same dish and thou hast been to me as a 
brother. Therefore I pay thee back with lies 
and ingratitude — as a Pathan. Listen now! 
When the grief of the soul is too heavy for en- 
durance it may be a little eased by speech, and, 
moreover, the mind of a true man is as a well, 
and the pebble of confession dropped therein 
sinks and is no more seen. From the Valley 
have I come on foot, league by league, with 
a fire in my chest like the fire of the Pit. And 
why? Hast thou, then, so quickly forgotten 
our customs, among this folk who sell their 
wives and their daughters for silver? Come 


172 DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


back with me to the North and be among men 
once more. Come back, when this matter is ac- 
complished and I call for thee ! The bloom of 
the peach- orchards is upon all the Valley, and 
here is only dust and a great stink. There is a 
pleasant wind among the mulberry trees, and 
the streams are bright with snow-water, and 
the caravans go up and the caravans go down, 
and a hundred fires sparkle in the gut of the 
Pass, and tent-peg answers hammer-nose, and 
pack-horse squeals to pack-horse across the 
drift smoke of the evening. It is good in the 
North now. Come back with me. Let us re- 
turn to our own people! Come! 

Whence is my sorrow? Does a man tear 
out his heart and make fritters thereof over a 
slow fire for aught other than a woman ? Do 
not laugh, friend of mine, for your time will 
also be. A woman of the Abazai was she, and 
I took her to wife to staunch the feud between 
our village and the men of Ghor. I am no 
longer young? The lime has touched my 
beard? True. I had no need of the wedding? 
Nay, but I loved her. What saith Rahman: 
“Into whose heart Love enters, there is Folly 
and naught else. By a glance of the eye she 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


173 


hath blinded thee; and by the eyelids and the 
fringe of the eyelids taken thee into the cap- 
tivity without ransom, and naught else.” Dost 
thou remember that song at the sheep-roast- 
ing in the Pindi camp among the Uzbegs of 
the Amir ? 

The Abazai are dogs and their women the 
servants of sin. There was a lover of her own 
people, but of that her father told me naught. 
My friend, curse for me in your prayers, as I 
curse at each praying from the Fakr to the 
Isha, the name of Daoud Shah, Abazai, whose 
head is still upon his neck, whose hands are 
still upon his wrists, who has done me dis- 
honor, who has made my name a laughing- 
stock among the women of Little Malikand. 

I went into Hindustan at the end of two 
months — to Cherat. I was gone twelve days 
only; but I had said that I would be fifteen 
days absent. This I did to try her, for it is 
written: “Trust not the incapable.’' Coming 
up the gorge alone in the falling of the light, 
I heard the voice of a man singing at the door 
of my house; and it was the voice of Daoud 
Shah, and the song that he sang was “Dray 
zvara yozju dee ” — “All three are one.” It was 
as though a heelrope had been slipped round 
my heart and all the Devils were drawing it 


174 dray WARA YOW DEE 


tight past endurance. I crept silently up the 
hill-road, but the fuse of my matchlock was 
wetted with the rain, and I could not slay 
Daoud Shah from afar. Moreover, it was in 
my mind to kill the woman also. Thus he 
sang, sitting outside my house, and, anon, the 
woman opened the door, and I came nearer, 
crawling on my belly among the rocks. I had 
only my knife to my hand. But a stone slipped 
under my foot, and the two looked down the 
hillside, and he, leaving his matchlock, fled 
from my anger, because he was afraid for the 
life that was in him. But the woman moved 
not till I stood in front of her, crying: 
woman, what is this that thou hast done?’^ 
And she, void of fear, though she knew my 
thought, laughed, saying: “It is a little thing. 
I loved him, and thou art a dog and cattle-thief 
coming by night. Strike And I, being still 
blinded by her beauty, for O my friend, the 
women of the Abazai are very fair, said: 
“Hast thou no fear?” And she answered: 
“None — but only the fear that I do not die.” 
Then said I : “Have no fear.” And she bowed 
her head, and I smote it off at the neck-bone 
so that it leaped between my feet. Thereafter 
the rage of our people came upon me, and I 
hacked off the breast, that the men of Little 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


175 


Malikand might know the crime, and cast the 
body into the water-course that flows to the 
Kabul river. Dray war a yow dee! Dray war a 
yow dee! The body without the head, the soul 
without light, and my own darkling heart — all 
three are one — all three are one ! 

That night, making no halt, I went to Ghor 
and demanded news of Daoud Shah. Men 
said : “He is gone to Pubbi for horses. What 
wouldst thou of him ? There is peace between 
the villages.’’ I made answer: “Aye! The 
peace of treachery and the love that the Devil 
Atala bore to Gurel.” So I fired thrice into 
the gate and laughed and went my way. 

In those hours, brother and friend of my 
heart’s heart, the moon and the stars were as 
blood above me, and in my mouth was the taste 
of dry earth. Also, I broke no bread, and my 
drink was the rain of the Valley of Ghor upon 
my face. 

At Pubbi I found Mahbub Ali, the writer, 
sitting upon his charpoy and gave up my arms 
according to your Law. But I was not griev- 
ed, for it was in my heart that I should kill 
Daoud Shah with my bare hands thus — as a 
man strips a bunch of raisins. Mahbub AH 
said: “Daoud Shah has even now gone hot- 
foot to Peshawur, and he will pick up his 


176 DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


horses upon the road to Delhi, for it is said 
that the Bombay Tramway Company are buy- 
ing horses there by the truckload ; eight horses 
to the truck/^ And that was a true saying. 

Then I saw that the hunting would be no 
little thing, for the man was gone into your 
borders to save himself against my wrath. 
And shall he save himself so? Am I not alive? 
Though he run northward to the Dora and 
the snow, or southerly to the Black Water, 
I will follow him, as a lover follows the foot- 
steps of his mistress, and coming upon him I 
will take him tenderly — Aho ! so tenderly ! — in 
my arms, saying: ‘Well hast thou done and 
and well shalt thou be repaid.’’ And out of 
that embrace Daoud Shah shall not go forth 
with the breath in his nostrils. Auggrh! 
Where is the pitcher? I am as thirsty as a 
mother-mare in the first month. 

Your Law! What is your Law to me? 
When the horses fight on the runs do they re- 
gard the boundary pillars; or do the kites of 
Ali Musjid forbear because the carrion lies un- 
der the shadow of the Ghor Kuttri ? The mat- 
ter began across the Border. It shall finish 
where God pleases. Here, in my own country, 
or in Hell. All three are one. 

Listen now, sharer of the sorrow of my 


177 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 

heart, and I will tell of the hunting. I foh 
lowed to Peshawur from Pubbi, and I went to 
and fro about the streets of Peshawur like a 
houseless dog, seeking for my enemy. Once I 
thought that I saw him washing his mouth in 
the conduit in the big square, but when I came 
up he was gone. It may be that it was he, and, 
seeing my face, he had fled. 

A girl of the bazar said that he would go to 
Nowshera. I said: “O heart’s heart, does 
Daoud Shah visit thee?” And she said: 
“Even so.” I said: “I would fain see him, 
for we be friends parted for two years. Hide 
me, I pray, here in the shadow of the window 
shutter, and I will wait for his coming.” And 
the girl said : “O Pathan, look into my eyes !” 
And I turned, leaning upon her breast, and 
looked into her eyes swearing that I spoke the 
very Truth of God. But she answered: 
“Never friend waited friend with such eyes. 
Lie to God and the Prophet, but to a woman ye 
cannot lie. Get hence! There shall no harm 
befall Daoud Shah by cause of me.” 

I would have strangled that girl but for the 
fear of your Police; and thus the hunting 
would have come to naught. Therefore I only 
laughed and departed, and she leaned over the 
window-bar in the night and mocked me 


178 DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


down the street. Her name is Jamun. When 
I have made my account with the man I will 
return to Peshawur and — her lovers shall de- 
sire her no more for her beauty’s sake. She 
shall not be Jamun but Ak, the cripple among 
trees. Ho ! Ho ! Ak shall she be ! 

At Peshawur I bought the horses and 
grapes, and the almonds and dried fruits, that 
the reason of my wanderings might be open to 
the Government, and that- there might be no 
hindrance upon the road. But when I came to 
Nowshera he was gone, and I knew not where 
to go. I stayed one day at Nowshera, and in 
the night a Voice spoke in my ears as I slept 
among the horses. All night it flew round my 
head and would not cease from whispering. 
I was upon my belly, sleeping as the Devils 
sleep, and it may have been that the Voice was 
the voice of a Devil. It said: ‘‘Go south, and 
thou shalt come upon Daoud Shah.” Listen, 
my brother and chief est among friends — lis- 
ten! Is the tale a long one? Think how it 
was long to me. I have trodden every league 
of the road from Pubbi to this place ; and from 
Nowshera my guide was only the Voice and 
the lust of vengeance. 

To the Uttock I went, but that was no hin- 
drance to me. Ho! Ho! A man may turn 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


179 


the word twice, even in his trouble. The Ut- 
tock was no uttock (obstacle) to me; and I 
heard the Voice above the noise of the waters 
beating on the big rock, saying: ‘'Go to the 
right.” So I went to Pindigheb, and in those 
days my sleep was taken from me utterly, and 
the head of the woman of the Abazai was be- 
fore me night and day, even as it had fallen 
between my feet. Dray war a yow dee! Dray 
war a yow dee! Fire, ashes, and couch, all 
three are one — all three are one ! 

Now I was far from the winter path of the 
dealers who had gone to Sialkot and so south 
by the rail, and the Big Road to the line of can- 
tonments ; but there was Sahib in camp at Pin- 
digheb who bought from me a white mare at 
a good price, and told me that one Daoud Shah 
had passed to Shahpur with horses. Then I 
saw that the warning of the Voice was true, 
and made swift to come to the Salt Hills. The 
Jhelum was in flood, but I could not wait, and, 
in the crossing, a bay stallion was washed 
down and drowned. Herein was God hard to 
me — not in respect of the beast, of that I had 
no care — ^but in this snatching. While T was 
upon the right bank urging the horses into the 
water, Daoud Shah was upon the left; for — 
^Alghias! Alghias ! — the hoofs of my mare scat- 


l8o DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


tered the hot ashes of his fire when we came 
up the hither bank in the light of morning. But 
he had fled. His feet were made swift by the 
terror of Death. And I went south from 
Shahpur as the kite flies. I dared not turn 
aside, lest I should miss my vengeance — which 
is my right. From Shahpur I skirted by the 
Jhelum, for I thought that he would avoid the 
Desert of the Rechna. But, presently, at Sahi- 
wal, I turned away upon the road to Jhang, 
Samundri, and Gugera, till, upon a night, the 
mottled mare breasted the force of the rail that 
runs to Montgomery. And that place was 
Okara, and the head of the woman of the 
Abazai lay upon the sand between my feet. 

Thence I went to Fazilka, and they said 
that I was mad to bring starved horses there. 
The Voice was with me, and I was not mad, 
but only wearied, because I could not find 
Daoud Shah. It was written that I should not 
find him at Rania nor Bahadurgarh, and I 
came into Delhi from the west, and there also 
I found him not. My friend, I have seen many 
strange things in my wanderings. I have seen 
Devils rioting across the Rechna as the stal- 
lions riot in spring. I have heard the Djinns 
calling to each other from holes in the sand, 
and I have seen them pass before my face. 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 


i8i 


There are no Devils, say the Sahibs ? They are 
very -wise, but they do not know all things 
about devils or — horses. Ho! Ho! I say to 
you who are laughing at my misery, that I 
have seen the Devils at high noon whooping 
and leaping on the shoals of the Chenab. And 
was I afraid ? My brother, when the desire of 
a man is set upon one thing alone, he fears 
neither God nor Man nor Devil. If my ven- 
geance failed, I would splinter the Gates of 
Paradise with the butt of my gun, or I would 
cut my way into Hell with my knife, and I 
would call upon Those who Govern there for 
the body of Daoud Shah. What love so deep 
as hate? 

Do not speak. I know the thought in your 
heart. Is the white of this eye clouded ? How 
does the blood beat at the wrist? There is no 
madness in my flesh, but only the vehemence of 
the desire that has eaten me up. Listen ! 

South of Delhi I knew not the country at all. 
Therefore I cannot say where I went, but I 
passed through many cities. I knew only that 
it was laid upon me to go south. When the 
horses could march no more, I threw myself 
upon the earth, and waited till the day. There 
was no sleep with me in that journeying ; and 
that was a heavy burden. Dost thou know. 


i 82 dray WARA YOW DEE 


brother of mine, the evil of wakefulness that 
cannot break — when the bones are sore for 
lack of sleep, and the skin of the temples 
twitches with weariness, and yet — there is no 
sleep — there is no sleep? Dray wara yow dee! 
Dray wara yow dee! The eye of the Sun, the 
eye of the Moon, and my own unrestful eyes 
— all three are one — all three are one ! 

There was a city the name whereof I have 
forgotten, and there the Voice called all night. 
That was ten days ago. It has cheated me 
afresh. 

I have come hither from a place called 
Hamirpur, and, behold, it is my Fate that I 
should meet with thee to my comfort, and the 
increase of friendship. This is a good omen. 
By the joy of looking upon thy face the weari- 
ness has gone from my feet, and the sorrow of 
my so long travel is forgotten. Also my heart 
is peaceful ; for I know that the end is near. 

It may be that I shall find Daoud Shah in 
this city going northward, since a Hillman will 
ever head back to his Hills, when the spring 
warns. And shall he see those hills of our 
country ? Surely I shall overtake him ! Surely 
my vengeance is safe! Surely God hath him 
in the hollow of His hand against my claiming. 
There shall no harm befall Daoud Shah till I 


DRAY WARA YOW DEE 183 


come; for I would fain kill him quick and 
whole with the life sticking firm in his body. A 
pomegranate is sweetest when the cloves break 
away unwilling from the rind. Let it be in the 
daytime, that I may see his face, and my de- 
light may be crowned. 

And when I have accomplished the matter 
and my Honor is made clean, I shall return 
thanks unto God, the Holder of the Scale of 
the Law, and I shall sleep. From the night, 
through the day, and into the night again I 
shall sleep ; and no dream shall trouble me. 

And now. Oh my brother, the tale is all told. 

Ahi! A hi! Alghias! A hi! 




THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA 




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THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA 


See the pale martyr with his shirt on fire.—Printer's 
Error. 

T hey tell the tale even now among the 
groves of the Berbulda Hill, and for cor- 
roboration point to the roofless and windowless 
Mission-house. The great God Dungara, the 
God of Things as They Are, Most Terrible, 
One-eyed, Bearing the Red Elephant Tusk, did 
it all ; and he who refuses to believe in Dungara 
will assuredly be smitten by the Madness of 
Yat — the madness that fell upon the sons and 
the daughters of the Buria Kol when they 
turned aside from Dungara and put on clothes. 
So says Anthon Daze, who is High Priest of 
the shrine and Warden of the Red Elephant 
Tusk. But if you ask the Assistant Collector 
and Agent in Charge of the Buria Kol, he will 
laugh — not because he bears any malice against 
missions, but because he himself saw the ven- 
genance of Dungara executed upon the spiri- 
tual children of the Reverend Justus Krenk, 
Pastor of the Tubingen Mission, and upon 
Lotta, his virtuous wife. 

Yet if ever a man merited good treatment of 
the Gods it was the Reverend Justus, one time 
187 


i88 


THE JUDGMENT 


of Heidelberg, who, on the faith of a call, went 
into the wilderness and took the blonde, blue- 
eyed Lotta with him. ‘We will these Heathen 
now by idolatrous practices so darkened better 
make,” said Justus in the early days of his 
career. “Yes,” he added with conviction, 
“they shall be good and shall with their hands 
to work learn. For all good Christians must 
work.” And upon a stipend more modest 
even than that of an English lay-reader, Justus 
Krenk kept house beyond Kamala and the 
gorge of Malair, beyond the Berbulda River 
close to the foot of the blue hill of Panth on 
whose summit stands the Temple of Dungara 
— in the heart of the country of the Buria Kol 
the naked, good-tempered, timid, shameless, 
lazy Buria Kol. 

Do you know what life at a Mission outpost 
means? Try to imagine a loneliness exceeding 
that of the smallest station to which Govern- 
ment has ever sent you — isolation that weighs 
upon the waking eyelids and drives you by 
force headlong into the labors of the day. 

There is no post, there is no one of your 
own color to speak to, there are no roads : there 
is, indeed, food to keep you alive, but it is not 
pleasant to eat; and whatever of good or 
beauty or interest there is in your life, must 


OF DUNGARA 189 

come from yourself and the grace that may be 
planted in you. 

In the morning, with a patter of soft feet, 
the converts, the doubtful, and the open scof- 
fers, troop up to the veranda. You must be in- 
finitely kind and patient, and, above all, clear- 
sighted, for you deal with the simplicity of 
childhood, the experience of man, and the 
subtlety of the savage. Your congregation 
have a hundred material wants to be con- 
sidered; and it is for you, as you believe in 
your personal responsibility to your Maker, to 
pick out of the clamoring crowd any gain of 
spirituality that may lie therein. If to the cure 
of souls you add that of bodies, your task will 
be all the more difficult, for the sick and the 
maimed will profess any and every creed for 
the sake of healing, and will laugh at you be- 
cause you are simple enough to believe them. 

As the day wears and the impetus of the 
morning dies away, there will come upon you 
an overwhelming sense of the uselessness of 
your toil. This must be striven against, and 
the only spur in your side will be the belief that 
you are playing against the Devil for the liv- 
ing soul. It is a great, a joyous belief ; but he 
who can hold it unwavering for four and 
twenty consecutive hours, must be blessed with 


190 


THE JUDGMENT 


an abundantly strong physique and equable 
nerve. 

Ask the grey heads of the Bannockburn 
Medical Crusade what manner of life their 
preachers lead; speak to the Racine Gospel 
Agency, those lean Americans whose boast is 
that they go where no Englishman dare fol- 
low; get a Pastor of the Tubingen Mission to 
talk of his experiences— if you can. You will 
be referred to the printed reports, but these 
contain no mention of the men who have lost 
youth and health, all that a man may lose 
except faith, in the wilds; of English maidens 
who have gone forth and died in the fever- 
stricken jungle of the Panth Hills, knowing 
from the first that death was almost a 
certainty. Few Pastors will tell you of these 
things any more than they will speak of that 
young David of St. Bees, who, set apart for the 
Lord’s work, broke down in the utter desola- 
tion, and returned half distraught to the Head 
Mission, crying : “There is no God, but I have 
walked with the Devil !” 

The reports are silent here, because heroism, 
failure, doubt, despair, and self-abnegation on 
the part of a mere cultured white man are 
things of no weight as compared to the saving 
of one half— human soul from a fantastic faith 


OF DUNGARA 


191 

in wood-spirits, goblins of the rock, and river- 
fiends. 

And Gallio, the Assistant Collector of the 
country side, “cared for none of these things.'' 
He had been long in the district, and the Buria 
Kol loved him and brought him offerings of 
speared fish, orchids from the dim moist heart 
of the forests, and as much game as he could 
eat. In return he gave them quinine, and with 
Athon Daz^ the High Priest, controlled their 
simple policies. 

“When you have been some years in the 
country,” said Gallio at the Krenks’ table “you 
grow to find one creed as good as another. I’ll 
give you all the assistance in my power, of 
course, but don’t hurt my Buria Kol. They 
are a good people and they trust me.” 

“I will them the Word of the Lord teach,” 
said Justus, his round face beaming with 
enthusiasm, “and I will assuredly to their pre- 
judices no wrong hastily without thinking 
make. But, O my friend, this in the mind 
impartial ity-of-creed-judgement-be-looking is 
very bad.” 

“Heigh-ho!” said Gallio, “I have their 
bodies and the district to see to, but you can 
try what you can do for their souls. Only don’t 
behave as your predecessor did, or I’m afraid 
that I can’t guarantee your life.” 


192 


THE JUDGMENT 


*'And that?” said Lotta, sturdily, handing 
him a cup of tea. 

"‘He went up to the Temple of Dungara — to 
be sure he was new to the country — and began 
hammering old Dungara over the head with 
an umbrella; so the Buria Kol turned out and 
hammered him rather savagely. I was in the 
district, and he sent a runner to me with a note 
saying : Tersecuted for the Lord’s sake. Send 
wing of regiment.’ The nearest troops were 
about two hundred miles off, but I guessed 
what he had been doing. I rode to Panth and 
talked to old Athon Daze like a father, telling 
him that a man of his wisdom ought to have 
known that the Sahib had sunstroke and was 
mad. You never saw a people more sorry in 
your life. Athon Daze apologized, sent wood 
and milk and fowls and all sorts of things ; and 
I gave five rupees to the shrine and told Mac- 
namara that he had been injudicious. He said 
that I had bowed down in the House of Rim- 
mon; but if he had only just gone over the 
brow of the hill and insulted Palin Deo, the 
idol of the Suria Kol, he would have been im- 
paled on a charred bamboo long before I could 
have done anything, and then I should have 
had to have hanged some of the poor brutes. 
Be gentle with them, Padri — ^but I don’t think 
you’ll do much.” 


OF DUNGARA 


193 


‘‘Not I/' said Justus, “but my Master. We 
will with the little children begin. Many of 
them will be sick — that is so. After the chil- 
dren the mothers; and then the men. But I 
would greatly that you were in internal sympa- 
thies with us prefer.” 

Gallio departed to risk his life in mending 
the rotten bamboo bridges of his people, in kill- 
ing a too persistent tiger here or there, in sleep- 
ing out in the reeking jungle, or in tracking 
the Suria Kol raiders who had taken a few 
heads from their brethren of the Buria clan. 
He was a knock-kneed, shambling young man, 
naturally devoid of creed or reverence, with a 
longing for absolute power which his unde- 
sirable district gratified. 

“No one wants my post,” he used to say, 
grimly, “and my Collector only pokes his nose 
in when he's quite certain that there is no 
fever. I’m monarch of all I survey, and 
Athon Daze is my viceroy.” 

Because Gallio prided himself on his su- 
preme disregard of human life — though he 
never extended the theory beyond his own — he 
naturally rode forty miles to the Mission with 
a tiny brown girl -baby on his saddle-bow. 

“Here is something for you, Padri,” said he. 
“The Kols leave their surplus chidren to die. 


194 


THE JUDGMENT 


’Don’t see why they shouldn’t, but you may 
rear this one. I picked it up beyond the Ber- 
bulda fork. I’ve a notion that the mother has 
been following me through the woods ever 
since.” 

^‘It is the first of the fold,” said Justus, and 
Lotta caught up the screaming morsel to her 
bosom and hushed it craftily ; while, as a wolf 
hangs in the field, Matui, who had borne it and 
in accordance with the law of her tribe had ex~ 
posed it to die, panted weary and footsore in 
the bamboo-brake, watching the house with 
hungry mother-eyes. What would the omnip- 
otent Assistant Collector do? Would the little 
man in the black coat eat her daughter alive as 
Athon Daze said was the custom of all men in 
black coats ? 

Matui waited among the bamboos through 
the long night ; and, in the morning, there came 
forth a fair white woman, the like of whom 
Matui had never seen, and in her arms was 
Matui’s daughter clad in spotless raiment 
Lotta knew little of the tongue of the Buria 
Kol, but when mother calls to mother, speech 
is easy to follow. By the hands stretched tim- 
idly to the hem of her gown, by the passionate 
gutturals and the longing eyes, Lotta under- 
stood with whom she had to deal. So Mauri 


OF DUNGARA 


195 


took her child again — would be a servant, even 
a slave, to this wonderful white woman, for 
her own tribe would recognize her no more. 
And Lotta wept with her exhaustively, after 
the German fashion, which includes much 
blowing of the nose. 

‘‘First the child, then the mother, and last 
the man, and to the Glory of God all,” said 
Justus the Hopeful. And the man came, with 
a bow and arrows, very angry indeed, for there 
was no one to cook for him. 

But the tale of the Mission is a long one, and 
I have no space to show how Justus, forgetful 
of his injudicious predecessor, grievously 
smote Moto, toe husband of Matui, for his 
brutality; how Moto was startled, but being 
released from the fear of instant death, took 
heart and became the faithful ally and first 
convert of Justus; how the little gathering 
grew, to the huge disgust of Athon Daze ; how 
the Priest of the God of Things as They Are 
argued subtilely with the Priest of the God of 
Things as They Should Be, and was worsted; 
how the dues of the Temple of Dungara fell 
away in fowls and fish and honeycomb; how 
Lotta lightened the Curse of Eve among the 
women, and how Justus did his best to intro- 
duce the Curse of Adam; how the Buria Kol 


196 


THE JUDGMENT 


rebelled at this, saying that their God was an 
idle God, and how Justus partially overcome 
their scruples against work, and taught them 
that the black earth was rich in other produce 
than pignuts only. 

All these things belong to the history of 
many months, and throughout these months 
the white-haired Athon Daze meditated re- 
venge for the tribal neglect of Dungara. With 
savage cunning he feigned friendship toward 
Justus, even hinting at his own conversion; 
but to the congregation of Dungara he said 
darkly: ‘‘They of the Padri’s flock have put 
on clothes and worship a busy God. Therefore 
Dungara will afflict them till they throw them- 
selves, howling, into the waters of the Ber- 
bulda.” At night the Red Elephant Tusk 
boomed and groaned among the hills, and the 
faithful waked and said : ^‘The God of Things 
as They Are matures Revenge against the 
backsliders. Be merciful, Dungara, to us, thy 
children, and give us all their crops !” 

Late in the cold weather, the Collector and 
his wife came into the Buria Kol country. 
“Go and look at Krenk’s Mission,” said Gal- 
lio. “He is doing good work in his own way, 
and Fd think he’d be pleased if you opened the 
bamboo chapel that he has managed to run up. 


OF DUNGARA 


197 


At any rate you’ll see a civilized Buria Kol.” 

Great was the stir in the Mission. “Now 
he and the gracious lady will that we have done 
good work with their own eyes see, and — yes 
— we will him our converts in all their new 
clothes by their own hands constructed ex- 
hibit. It will a great day be — for the Lord al- 
ways,” said Justus, and Lotta said “Amen.” 

Justus had, in his quiet way, felt jealous of 
the Basel Weaving Mission, his own converts 
being unhandy; but Athon Daze had latterly 
induced some of them to tackle the glossy silky 
fibres of a plant that grew plenteously on the 
Panth Hills. It yielded a cloth white and 
smooth almost as the tappa of the South Seas, 
and that day the converts were to wear for the' 
first time clothes made therefrom. Justus was 
proud of his work. 

“They shall in white clothes clothed to meet 
the Collector and his well-born lady come 
down, singing, ^Now thank we all our God.* 
Then he will the chapel open, and — yes — even 
Gallio to believe will begin. Stand so, my chil- 
dren, two by two, and — Lotta, why do they 
thus themselves bescratch ? It is not seemly to 
wriggle, Nala, my child. The Collector will 
be here and be pained.” 

The Collector, his wife, and Gallio climbed 


198 


THE JUDGMENT 


the hill to the Mission-station. The converts 
were drawn up in two lines, a shining band 
nearly forty strong. ^‘Hah!” said the Col- 
lector, whose acquisitive bent of mind led him 
to believe that he had fostered the institution 
from the first. ‘‘Advancing, I see, by leaps 
and bounds.” 

Never was true word spoken ! The Mission 
was advancing exactly as he had said — at first 
by little hops and shuffles of shamefaced un- 
easiness, but soon by the leaps of fly-stung 
horses and the bounds of maddened kangaroos. 
From the hill of Panth the Red Elephant Tusk 
delivered a dry and anguished blare. The 
ranks of the converts wavered, broke and scat- 
tered with yells and shrieks of pain, while Jus- 
tus and Lotta stood horror-stricken. 

“It is the Judgment of Dungara!” shouted 
a voice. “I burn! I burn. To the river or we 
die!” 

The mob wheeled and headed for the rocks 
that overhung the Berbulda, writhing, stamp- 
ing, twisting and shedding its garments as it 
ran, pursued by the thunder of the trumpet of 
Dungara. Justus and Lotta fled to the Col- 
lector almost in tears. 

“I cannot understand! Yesterday,” panted 
Justus, “they had the Ten Commandments. — 


OF DUNGARA 


199 


What is this ? Praise the Lord all good spirits 
by land and by sea. Nala! Oh, shame 

With a bound and a scream there alighted 
on the rocks above their heads, Nala, once the 
pride of the Mission, a maiden of fourteen 
summers, good, docile, and virtuous — now 
naked as the dawn and spitting like a wild-cat. 

“Was it for this!” she raved, hurling her 
petticoat at Justus; “was it for this I left my 
people and Dungara — for the fires of your Bad 
Place? Blind ape, little earthworm, dried fish 
that you are, you said that I should never 
burn ! O Dungara, I burn now ! I burn now ! 
Have mercy, God of Things as They are!” 

She turned and flung herself into the Ber- 
bulda, and the trumpet of Dungara bellowed 
jubilantly. The last of the converts of the 
Tubingen Mission had put a quarter of a mile 
of rapid river between herself and her teach- 
ers. 

“Yesterday,” gulped Justus, “she taught in 
the school A, B, C, D. — Oh! It is the work 
of Satan!” 

But Gallio was curiously regarding the 
maiden’s petticoat where it had fallen at his 
feet. He felt its texture, drew back his shirt- 
sleeve beyond the deep tan of his wrist and 
pressed a fold of the cloth against the flesh. A 
blotch of angry red rose on the white skin. 


200 


THE JUDGMENT 


said Gallio, calmly, “I thought so.’’ 

‘‘What is it?” said Justus. 

“I should call it the Shirt of Nessus, but — 
Where did you get the fibre of this cloth 
from?” 

“Athon Daze,” said Justus. “He showed 
the boys how it should manufactured be.” 

“The old fox! Do you know that he has 
given you the Nilgiri Nettle — scorpion — Gi- 
rardenia heterophylla — to work up? No won- 
der they squirmed! Why it stings even when 
they make bridge-ropes of it, unless it’s soaked 
for six weeks. The cunning brute ! It would 
take about half an hour to burn through their 
thick hides, and then!” — 

Gallia burst into laughter, but Lotta was 
weeping in the arms of the Collector’s wife, 
and Justus had covered his face with his hands. 

**Girardenia heterophylla!” repeated Gallio. 
“Krenk, why didnft you tell me ? I could have 
saved you this. Woven fire! Anybody but a 
naked Kol would have known it, and, if I’m 
a judge of their ways, you’ll never get them 
back.” 

He looked across the river to where the con- 
verts were still wallowing and wailing in the 
shallows, and the laughter died out of his eyes, 
for he saw that the Tubingen Mission to the 
Buria Kol was dead. 


OF DUNGARA 


201 


Never again, though they hung mournfully 
round the deserted school for three months, 
could Lotta or Justus coax back even the 
most promising of their flock. No! The end 
of conversion was the fire of the Bad Place — 
fire that ran through the limbs and gnawed 
into the bones. Who dare a second time tempt 
the anger of Dungara? Let the little man and 
his wife go elsewhere. The Buria Kol would 
have none of them. An unofficial message to 
Athon Daze that if a hair of their heads were 
touched, Athon Daze and the priests of Dun- 
gara would be hanged by Gallio at the temple 
shrine, protected Justus and Lotta from the 
stumpy poisoned arrows of the Buria Kol, but 
neither fish nor fowl, honeycomb, salt nor 
young pig were brought to their doors any 
more. And, alas! man cannot live by grace 
alone if meat be wanting. 

“Yet us go, mine wife,” said Justus; “there 
is no good here, and the Lord has willed that 
some other man shall the work take — in good 
time — in His own good time. We will go 
away, and I will — yes — some botany bestudy.” 

If any one is anxious to convert the Buria 
Kol afresh, there lies at least the core of a mis- 
sion-house under the hill of Panth. But the 
chapel and school have long since fallen back 
into jungle. 

























AT HOWLI THANA 


























AT HOWLI THANA 


His own shoe, his own head . — Native Proverb. 

S a messenger, if the heart of the Pres- 



^ ^ ence be moved to so great favor. And 
on six rupees. Yes, Sahib, for I have three little 
children whose stomachs are always empty, 
and corn is now but forty pounds to the rupee. 
I will make so clever a messenger that you 
shall all day long be pleased with me, and, at 
the end of the year, bestow a turban. I know 
all the roads of the Station and many other 
things. Aha, Sahib! I am clever. Give me 
service. I was aforetime in the Police. A bad 
character? Now without doubt an enemy has 
told this tale. Never was I a scamp. I am a 
man of clean heart, and all my words are true. 
They knew this when I was in the Police. 
They said : ‘‘Afzal Khan is a true speaker in 
whose words men may trust.” I am a Delhi 
Pathan, Sahib — all Delhi Pathans are good 
men. You have seen Delhi? Yes, it is true that 
there be many scamps among the Delhi Pa- 
thans. How wise is the Sahib! Nothing is 


205 


206 


AT. HOWLI THANA 


hid from his eyes and he will make me his mes^ 
senger, and I will take all his notes secretly 
and without ostentation. Nay, Sahib, God is 
my witness that I meant no evil. I have long 
desired to serve under a true Sahib-^a vir- 
tuous Sahib. Many young Sahibs are as devils 
unchanged. With these Sahibs I would take 
no service — not though all the stomachs of my 
little children were crying for bread. 

Why am I not still in the police? I will 
speak true talk. An evil came to the Thana — 
to Ram Baksh, the Havildar, and Maula 
Baksh, and Juggut Ram and Bhim Singh and 
Suruj Bui. Ram Baksh is in the jail for a 
space, and so also is Maula Baksh. 

It was at the Thana of Howli, on the road 
that leads to Gokral-Seetarun wherein are 
many dacoits. We were all brave men — Rus- 
tums. Wherefore we were sent to that Thana 
which was eight miles from the next Thana. 
All day and all night we watched for da- 
coits. Why does the Sahib laugh ? Nay, I will 
make a confession. The dacoits were too 
clever, and seeing this, we made no further 
trouble. It was in the hot weather. What 
can a man do in the hot days? Is the Sahib 
who is so strong — is he, even, vigorous in that 
hour? We made an arrangement with the da- 


AT HOWLI THANA 


207 


coits for the sake of peace. That was the work 
of the Havildar who was fat. Ho! Ho! 
Sahib, he is now getting thin in the jail among 
the carpets. The Havildar said: “Give us no 
trouble, and we will give you no trouble. At 
the end of the reaping send us a man to lead 
before the judge, a man of infirm mind against 
whom the trumped-up case will break down. 
Thus we will save our honor.’' To this talk the 
dacoits agreed, and we had no trouble at the 
Thana, and could eat melons in peace, sitting 
upon our charpoys all day long. Sweet as 
sugar-cane are the melons of Howli. 

Now there was an assistant commissioner 
— a Stunt Sahib, in that district, called Yun- 
kum Sahib. Aha! He was hard — hard even 
as is the Sahib who, without doubt, will give 
me the shadow of his protection. Many eyes 
had Yunkum Sahib, and moved quickly 
through his district, Men called him The 
Tiger of Gokral-Seetarun, because he would 
arrive unannounced and make his kill, and, 
before sunset, would be giving trouble to the 
Tehsildars thirty miles away. No one knew 
the comings or the goings of Yunkum Sahib. 
He had no camp, and when his horse was 
weary he rode upon a devil carriage. I do 
not know its name, but the Sahib sat in the 


2o8 


AT HOWLI THANA 


midst of three silver wheels that made no 
creaking, and drave them with his legs, pranc- 
ing like a bean-fed horse — thus. A shadow 
of a hawk upon the fields was not more with- 
out noise than the devil-carriage of Yunkum 
Sahib. It was here : it was there : it was gone : 
and the rapport was made, and there was 
trouble. Ask the Tehsildar of Rohestri how 
the hen-stealing came to be known. Sahib. 

It fell upon a night that we of the Thana 
slept according to custom upon our charpoys, 
having eaten the evening meal and drunk 
tobacco. When we awoke in the morning, be- 
hold, of our six rifles not one remained ! 
Also, the big Police-book that was in the Ha- 
vildar’s charge was gone. Seeing these things, 
we were very much afraid, thinking on our 
parts that the dacoits, regardless of honor, had 
come by night, and put us to shame. Then 
said Ram Baksh, the Havildar: “Be silent! 
The business is an evil business, but it may yet 
go well. Let us make the case complete. 
Bring a kid and my tulwar. See you not now, 
O fools? A kick for a horse, but a word is 
enough for a man.” 

We of the Thana, perceiving quickly what 
was in the mind of the Havildar, and greatly 
fearing that the service would be lost, made 


AT HOWLI THANA 


209 


haste to take the kid into the inner room, and 
attended to the words of the Havildar. 
“Twenty dacoits came,” said the Havildar, and 
we' taking his words, repeated after him ac- 
cording to custom. “There was a great fight,” 
said the Havildar, “and of us no man escaped 
unhurt. The bars of the window were bro- 
ken. Suruj Bui, see thou to that ; and, O men, 
put speed into your work, for a runner must 
go with the news to The Tiger of Gokral-See- 
tarun.” Thereon, Suruj Bui, leaning with his 
shoulder, brake in the bars of the window, and 
I, beating her with a whip, made the Havil- 
dar’s mare skip among the melon-beds till they 
were much trodden with hoof-prints. 

These things being made, I returned to the 
Thana, and the goat was slain, and certain 
portions of the walls were blackened with fire, 
and each man dipped his clothes a little into the 
blood of the goat. Know, O Sahib, that a 
wound made by man upon his own body can, 
by those skilled, be easily discerned from a 
wound wrought by another man. Therefore, 
the Havildar, taking his tulwar, smote one of 
us lightly on the forearm in the fat, and an- 
other on the leg, and a third on the back of the 
hand. Thus dealt he with all of us till the 
blood came; and Suruj Bui, more eager than 


210 


AT HOWLI THANA 


the others, took out much hair. O Sahib, 
never was so perfect an arrangement. Yea, 
even I would have sworn that the Thana had 
been treated as we said. There was smoke 
breaking and blood and trampled earth. 

“Ride now, Maula Baksh,” said the Havil- 
dar, “to the house of the Stunt Sahib, and 
carry the news of the dacoity. Do you also, 
O Afzal Khan, run there, and take heed that 
you are mired with sweat and dust on your in- 
coming. The blood will dry on the clothes. I 
will stay and send a straight report to the 
Dipty Sahib, and we will catch certain that ye 
know of, villagers, so that all may be ready 
against the Dipty Sahib’s arrival.” 

Thus Maula Baksh rode and I ran hanging 
on the stirrup, and together we came in an evil 
plight before The Tiger of Gokral-Seetarun 
in the Rohestri tehsil. Our tale was long and 
correct, Sahib, for we gave even the names of 
the dacoits and the issue of the fight and be- 
sought him to come. But The Tiger made no 
sign, and only smiled after the manner of 
Sahibs when they have a wickedness in their 
hearts. “Swear ye to the rapport?” said he, 
and we said : “Thy servants swear. The blood 
of the fight is but newly dry upon us. Judge 
thou if it be the blood of the servants of the 


AT HOWLI THANA 


2II 


Presence, or not.” And he said: “I see. Ye 
have done well.” But he did not call for his 
horse or his devil-carriage, and scour the land 
as was his custom. He said : ‘‘Rest now and 
eat bread, for ye be wearied men. I will wait 
the coming of the Dipty Sahib.” 

Now it is the order that the Havildar of the 
Thana should send a straight report of all da- 
coities to the Dipty Sahib. At noon came he, 
a fat man and an old, and overbearing withal, 
but we of the Thana had no fear of his anger ; 
dreading more the silences of The Tiger of 
Gokral-Seetarun. With him came Ram 
Baksh, the Havildar, and the others, guard- 
ing ten men of the village of Howli — all men 
evil affected toward the Police of the Sirkar. 
As prisoners they came, the irons upon their 
hands, crying for mercy — Imam Baksh, the 
farmer, who had denied his wife to the Havil- 
dar, and others, ill-conditioned rascals against 
whom we of the Thana bore spite. It was 
well done, and the Havildar was proud. But 
the Dipty Sahib was angry with the Stunt 
for lack of zeal, and said “Dam-Dam” after 
the custom of the English people, and ex- 
tolled the Havildar. Yunkum Sahib lay still 
in his long chair. “Have the men sworn?” 
said Yunkum Sahib. ''Aye, and captured ten 


212 


AT HOWLI THANA 


evil-doers,” said the Dipty Sahib. ‘There be 
more abroad in your charge. Take horse — 
ride, and go in the name of the Sirkar !” 
“Truly there be more evil-doers abroad,” said 
Yunkum Sahib, “but there is no need of a 
horse. Come all men with me.” 

I saw the mark of a string on the temples of 
Imam Baksh. Does the Presence know the 
torture of the Cold Draw? I saw also the 
face of The Tiger of Gokral-Seetarun, the 
evil smile was upon it, and I stood back ready 
for what might befall. Well it was. Sahib, 
that I did this thing. Yunkum Sahib un- 
locked the door of his bathroom, and smiled 
anew. Within lay the six rifles and the big 
Police-book of the Thana of Howli ! He 
had come by night in the devil-carriage that 
is noiseless as a ghoul, and moving among 
us asleep, had taken away both the guns and 
the book! Twice had he come to the Thana, 
taking each time three rifles. The liver of the 
Havildar was turned to water, and he fell 
scrabbling in the dirt about the boots of Yun- 
kum Sahib, crying — “Have mercy!” 

And I ? Sahib, I am a Delhi Pathan, and a 
young man with little children. The Havil- 
dar’s mare was in the compound. I ran to her 
and rode: the black wrath of the Sirkar was 


AT HOWLI THANA 


213 


behind me, and I knew not whither to go. Till 
she dropped and died I rode the red mare ; and 
by the blessing of God who is without doubt 
on the side of all just men, I escaped. But the 
Havildar and the rest are now in jail. 

I am a scamp ? It is as the Presence pleases. 
God will make the Presence a Lord, and give 
him a rich Memsahih as fair as a Peri to wife, 
and many strong sons, if he makes me his or- 
derly. The Mercy of Heaven be upon the 
Sahib! Yes, I will only go to the bazar and 
bring my children to these so-palace-like quar- 
ters, and then — the Presence is my Father and 
my Mother, and I, Afzal Khan, am his slave. 

Ohe, Sirdar-ji! I also am of the household 
of the Sahib. 



GEMINI 







GEMINI 


Great is the justice of the White Man-greater the 
power of a Wt.—Native Proverb. 


^^HIS is your English Justice, Protector of 
the Poor. Look at my back and loins 
which are beaten with sticks — heavy sticks ! I 
am a poor man, and there is no justice in 
Courts. 

There were two of us, and we were born of 
one birth, but I swear to you that I was born 
the first, and Ram Dass is the younger by three 
full breaths. The astrologer said so, and it is 
written in my horoscope — the horoscope of 
Durga Dass. 

But we were alike — I and my brother who is 
a beast without honor — so alike that none 
knew, together or apart, which was Durga 
Dass. T am a Mahainn of Pali in Marwar, 
and an honest man. This is true talk. When 
we were men, we left our father’s house in 
Pali, and went to the Punjab, where all the 
people are mud-heads and sons of asses. We 
took shop together in Isser Jang — I and my 
brother near the big well where the Governor’s 
camp draws water. But Ram Dass, who is 
without truth, made quarrel with me, and we 
217 


2i8 


GEMINI 


were divided. He took his books, and his pots, 
and his Mark, and became a bunnia — a money- 
lender — in the long street of Isser Jang, near 
the gateway of the road that goes to Mont- 
gomery. It was not my fault that we pulled 
each other’s turbans. I am a Mahajun of 
Pali, and I always speak true talk. Ram Dass 
was the thief and liar. 

Now no man, not even the little children, 
could at one glance, see which was Ram Dass 
and which was Durga Dass. But all the people 
of Isser Jang — may they die without sons! — 
said that we were thieves. They used much 
bad talk, but I took money on their bedsteads 
and their cooking-pots and the standing crop 
and the calf unborn, from the well in the big 
square to the gate of the Montgomery road. 
They were fools, these people — unfit to cut the 
toe-nails of a Marwari from Pali. I loaned 
money to them all. A little, very little only — 
here a pice and there a pice. God is my wit- 
ness that I am a poor man ! The money is all 
with Ram Dass — may his sons turn Christian, 
and his daughter be a burning fire and a shame 
in the house from generation to generation! 
May she die unwed, and be the mother of a 
multitude of bastards ! Let the light go out in 
the house of Ram Dass, my brother. This I 
pray daily twice — with offerings and charms. 


GEMINI 


219 


Thus the trouble began. We divided the 
town of Isser Jang between us — I and my 
brother. There was a landholder beyond the 
gates, living but one short mile out, on the road 
that leads to Montgomery, and his name was 
Muhammad Shah, son of a Nawab. He was a 
great devil and drank wine. So long as there 
were women in his house, and wine and money 
for the marriage-feasts, he was merry and 
wiped his mouth. Ram Dass loaned him the 
money, a lakh or half a lakh — how do I know ? 
— and so long as the money was loaned, the 
land-holder cared not what he signed. 

The people of Isser Jang were my portion, 
and the landholder and the out-town was the 
portion of Ram Dass ; so we had arranged. I 
v/as the poor man, for the people of Isser Jang 
were without wealth. I did what I could, but 
Ram Dass had only to wait without the door 
of the landholder’s garden court, and to lend 
him the money; taking the bonds from the 
hands of the steward. 

In the autumn of the year after the lending. 
Ram Dass said to the landholder : ‘Tay me my 
money,” but the landholder gave him abuse. 
But Ram Dass went into the Courts with the 
papers and the bonds — all correct — and took 
out decrees against the landholder; and the 


220 


GEMINI 


name of the Government was across the stamps 
of the decrees. Ram Dass took field by field, 
and mango-tree by mango-tree, and well by 
well; putting in his own men — debtors of the 
out-town of Isser Jang — to cultivate the crops. 
So he crept up across the land, for he had the 
papers, and the name of the Government was 
across the stamps, till his men held the crops 
for him on all sides of the big white house of 
the landholder. It was well done; but when 
the landholder saw these things he was very 
angry and cursed Ram Dass after the manner 
of the Muhammadans. 

And thus the landholder was angry, but 
Ram Dass laughed and claimed more fields, 
as was written upon the bonds. This was in 
the month of Phagun. I took my horse and 
went out to speak to the man who makes lac- 
bangles upon the road that leads to Montgom- 
ery, because he owed me a debt. There was in 
front of me, upon his horse, my brother Ram 
Dass. And when he saw me he turned aside 
into the high crops, because there was hatred 
between us. And I went forward till I came 
to the orange-bushes by the landholder’s house. 
The bats were flying, and the evening smoke 
was low down upon the land. Here met me 
four men — swash-bucklers and Muhammadans 


GEMINI 


221 


— with their faces bound up, laying hold of my 
horse’s bridle and crying out: ‘‘This is Ram 
Dass ! Beat !” Me they beat with their staves 
— heavy staves bound about with wire at the 
end, such weapons as those swine of Punjabis 
use — till, having cried for mercy, I fell down 
senseless. But these shameless ones still beat 
me, saying : “O Ram Dass, this is your interest 
— well weighed and counted into your hand, 
Ram Dass.” I cried aloud that I was not Ram 
Dass but Durga Dass, his brother, yet they 
only beat me the more, and when I could make 
no more outcry they left me. But I saw their 
faces. There was Elahi Baksh who runs by 
the side of the landholder’s white horse, and 
Nur Ali the keeper of the door, and Wajib Ali 
the very strong cook, and Abdul Latif the mes- 
senger — all of the household of the landholder. 
These things I can swear on the Cow’s Tail if 
need be, but — Ahi! Ahi! it has been already 
sworn, and I am a poor man whose honor is 
lost. 

When these four had gone away laughing, 
my brother Ram Dass came out of the crops 
and mourned over me as one dead. But I 
opened my eyes, and prayed him to get me 
water. When I had drunk, he carried me on 
his back, and by byways brought me into the 


222 


GEMINI 


town of Isser Jang. My heart was turned to 
Ram Dass, my brother, in that hour, because 
of his kindness, and I lost my enmity. 

But a snake is a snake till it is dead; and a 
liar is a liar till the Judgment of Gods takes 
hold of his heel. I was wrong in that I trusted 
my brother — the son of my mother. 

When we had come to his house and I was 
a little restored, I told him my tale, and he 
said: ‘^Without doubt it is me whom they 
would have beaten. But the Law Courts are 
open, and there is the Justice of the Sirkar 
above all; and to the Law Courts do thou go 
when this sickness is overpast.^’ 

Now when we two had left Pali in the old 
years, there fell a famine that ran from Jey- 
sulmir to Gurgaon and touched Gogunda in 
the south. At that time the sister of my father 
came away and lived with us in Isser Jang; for 
a man must above all see that his folk do not 
die of want. When the quarrel between us 
twain came about, the sister of my father — a 
lean she-dog without teeth — said that Ram 
Dass had the right, and went with him. Into 
her hands — ^because she knew medicines and 
many cures — Ram Dass, my brother, put me 
faint with the beating, and much bruised even 
to the pouring of blood from the mouth. When 


GEMINI 


223 


I had two days’ sickness the fever came upon 
me; and I set aside the fever to the account 
written in my mind against the landholder. 

The Punjabis of Isser Jang are all sons of 
Belial and a she-ass, but they are very good 
witnesses, bearing testimony unshakingly 
whatever the pleaders may say. I would 
purchase witnesses by the score, and each 
man should give evidence, not only against 
Nur Ali, Wajib Ali, Abdul Latif and Elihi 
Baksh, but against the landholder, saying 
that he upon his white horse had called his 
men to beat me; and, further, that they had 
robbed me of two hundred rupees. For the 
latter testimony, I would remit a little of the 
debt of the man who had sold the lac-bangles, 
and he should say that he had put the money 
into my hands, and had seen the robbery from 
afar, but, being afraid, had run away. This 
plan I told to my brother Ram Dass; and he 
said that the arrangement was good, and bade 
me take comfort and make swift work to be 
abroad again. My heart was opened to my 
brother in my sickness, and I told him the 
names of those whom I would call as witnesses 
— all men in my debt, but of that the Mag- 
istrate Sahib could have no knowledge, nor 
the landholder. The fever stayed with me, 


224 


GEMINI 


and after the fever, I was taken with colic, 
and gripings very terrible. In that day I 
thought that my end was at hand, but I know 
now that she who gave me the medicines, 
the sister of my father — a widow with a 
widow’s heart — had brought about my second 
sickness. Ram Dass, my brother, said that my 
house was shut and locked, and brought me the 
big door-key and my books, together with all 
the moneys that were in my house — even the 
money that was buried under the floor; for I 
was in great fear lest thieves should break in 
and dig. I speak true talk ; there was but very 
little money in my house. Perhaps ten rupees 
— perhaps twenty. How can I tell? God is 
my witness that I am a poor man. 

One night, when I had told Ram Dass all 
that was in my heart of the lawsuit that I 
would bring against the landholder, and Ram 
Dass had said that he had made the arrange- 
ments with the witnesses, giving me their 
names written, I was taken with a new great 
sickness, and they put me on the bed. When 
I was a little recovered — I cannot tell how 
many days afterward — I made enquiry for 
Ram Dass, and the sister of my father said 
that he had gone to Montgomery upon a law- 
suit. I took medicine and slept very heavily 


GEMINI 


225 


without waking. When my eyes were opened, 
there was a great stillness in the house of Ram 
Dass, and none answered when I called — not 
even the sister of my father. This filled me 
with fear, for I knew not what had happened. 

Taking a stick in my hand, I went out slowly, 
till I came to the great square by the well, 
and my heart was hot in me against the land- 
holder because of the pain of every step I took. 

I called for Jo war Singh, the carpenter, 
whose name was first upon the list of those 
who should bear evidence against the land- 
holder, saying: ‘‘Are things ready, and do you 
know what should be said?’’ 

Jowar Singh answered: “What is this, and 
whence do you come, Durga Dass?” 

I said : “From my bed, where I have so long 
lain sick because of the landholder. Where 
is Ram Dass, my brother, who was to have 
made the arrangement for the witnesses ? 
Surely you and yours know these things !” 

Then Jowar Singh said : “What has this 
to do with us, O liar? I have borne witness 
and I have been paid, and the landholder has, 
by the order of the Court, paid both the five 
hundred rupees that he robbed from Ram Dass 
and yet other five hundred because of the great 
injury he did to your brother.” 


226 


GEMINI 


The well and the jujube-tree above it and the 
square of Isser Jang became dark in my eyes, 
but I leaned on my stick and said: ‘'Nay! 
This is child’s talk and senseless. It was I who 
suffered at the hands of the landholder, and I 
am come to make ready the case. Where is my 
brother Ram Dass?” 

But Jowar Singh shook his head, and a 
woman cried: “What lie is here? What 
quarrel had the landholder with you, hunniaf 
It is only a shameless one and one without 
faith, who profits by his brother’s smarts. 
Have these hunnias no bowels?” 

I cried again, saying : “By the Cow — ^by the 
Oath of the Cow, by the Temple of the Blue- 
throated Mahadeo, I and I only was beaten — 
beaten to the death ! Let your talk be straight, 
O people of Isser Jang, and I will pay for the 
witnesses.” And I tottered where I stood, for 
the sickness and the pain of the beating were 
heavy upon me. 

Then Ram Narain, who has his carpet 
spread under the jujube-tree by the well, and 
writes all letters for the men of the town, came 
up and said : “To-day is the one and fortieth 
day since the beating, and since these six days 
the case has been judged in the Court, and the 
Assistant Commissioner Sahib has given it for 


GEMINI 


227 


your brother Ram Dass, allowing the robbery, 
to which, too, I bore witness, and all things 
else as the witnesses said. There were many 
witnesses, and twice Ram Dass became sense- 
less in the Court because of his wounds, and 
the Stunt Sahib — the haha Stunt Sahib — gave 
him a chair before all the pleaders. Why do 
you howl, Durga Dass? These things fell as 
I have said. Was it not so?” 

And Jowar Singh said: “That is truth. I 
was there, and there was a red cushion in the 
chair.” 

And Ram Narain said: “Great shame has 
come upon the landholder because of this 
judgment, and fearing his anger. Ram Dass 
and all his house have gone back to Pali. Ram 
Dass told us that you also had gone first, the 
enmity being healed up between you, to open a 
shop in Pali. Indeed, it were well for you that 
you go even now, for the landholder has sworn 
that if he catch any one of your house, he will 
hang him by the heels from the well-beam, and, 
swinging him to and fro, will beat him with 
staves till the blood runs from his ears. What 
I have said in respect to the case is true, as 
these men here can testify — even to the five 
hundred rupees.” 

I said : “Was it five hundred ?” And Kirpa 


228 


GEMINI 


Ram, the jat, said : “Five hundred ; for I bore 
■witness also.” 

And I groaned, for it had been in my heart 
to have said two hundred only. 

Then a new fear came upon me and my bow- 
els turned to water, and, running swiftly to the 
house of Ram Dass, I sought for my books and 
my money in the great wooden chest under the 
bedstead. There remained nothing; not even 
a cowrie’s value. All had been taken by the 
devil who said he was my brother. I went to 
my own house also and opened the boards of 
the shutters; but there also was nothing save 
the rats among the grain-baskets. In that hour 
my senses left me, and, tearing my clothes, I 
ran to the well-place, crying out for the Jus- 
tice of the English on my brother Ram Dass, 
and, in my madness, telling all that the books 
were lost. When men saw that I would have 
jumped down the well, they believed the truth 
of my talk; more especially because upon my 
back and bosom were still the marks of the 
staves of the landholder. 

Jo war Singh the carpenter withstood me, 
and turning me in his hands — for he is a very 
strong man — showed the scars upon my body, 
and bowed down with laughter upon the well- 
curb. He cried aloud so that all heard him. 


GEMINI 


229 


from the well-square to the Caravanserai of 
the Pilgrims: ‘‘Oho! The jackals have quar- 
relled, and the grey one has been caught in the 
trap. In truth, this man has been grievously 
beaten, and his brother has taken the money 
which the Court decreed! Oh, bunnia, this 
shall be told for years against you! The jack- 
als have quarreled, and, moreover, the books 
are burned. O people indebted to Durga Dass, 
— and I know that ye be many — the books are 
burned !” 

Then all Isser Jang took up the cry that the 
books were burned — A hi! A hi! that in my 
folly I had let that escape my mouth — and they 
laughed throughout the city. They gave me the 
abuse of the Punjabi, which is a terrible abuse 
and very hot ; pelting me also with sticks and 
cow-dung till I fell down and cried for mercy. 

Ram Narain, the letter-writer, bade the peo- 
ple cease, for fear that the news should get 
into Montgomery, and the Policemen might 
come down to inquire. He said, using many 
bad words : “This much mercy will I do to you 
Durga Dass, though there was no mercy in 
your dealings with my sister^s son over the 
matter of the dun heifer. Has any man a pony 
on which he sets no store, that this fellow may 
escape? If the landholder hears that one of 


230 


GEMINI 


the twain (and God knows whether he beat one 
or both, but this man is certainly beaten) be 
in the city, there will be a murder done, and 
then will come the Police, making inquisition 
into each man’s house and eating the sweet- 
seller’s stuff all day long.” 

Kirpa Ram the jat, said: “I have a pony 
very sick. But with beating he can be made 
to walk for two miles. If he dies, the hide- 
sellers will have the body.” 

Then Chumbo, the hide-seller, said : ‘T will 
pay three annas for the body, and will walk 
by this man’s side till such time as the pony 
dies. If it be more than two miles, I will pay 
two annas only.” 

Kirpa Ram said : ‘'Be it so.” Men brought 
out the pony, and I asked leave to draw a little 
water from the well, because I was dried up 
with fear. 

Then Ram Narain said : “Here be four an- 
nas. God has brought you very low, Durga 
Dass, and I would not send you away empty, 
even though the matter of my sister’s son’s 
dun heifer be an open sore between us. It is a 
long way to your own country. Go, and if it 
be so willed, live; but, above all, do not take 
the pony’s bridle, for that is mine.” 

And I went out of Isser Jang, amid the 


GEMINI 


231 


laughing of the huge-thighed Jats, and the 
hide-seller walked by my side waiting for the 
pony to fall dead. In one mile it died, and 
being full of fear of the landholder, I ran till I 
could run no more and came to this place. 

But I swear by the Cow, I swear by all 
things whereon Hindus and Musalmans, and 
even the Sahib swear, that I, and not my 
brother, was beaten by the landholder. But the 
case is shut and the doors of the Law Courts 
are shut, and God knows where the haha Stunt 
Sahib — the mother’s milk is not yet dry upon 
his hairless lip — is gone. Ahi! A hi! I have 
no witnesses, and the scars will heal, and I am 
a poor man. But, on my Father’s Soul, on the 
oath of a Mahajun from Pali, I, and not my 
brother, I was beaten by the landholder ! 

What can I do? The Justice of the English 
is as a great river. Having gone forward, it 
does not return. Howbeit, do you. Sahib, take 
a pen and write clearly what I have said, that 
the Dipty Sahib may see, and reprove the Stunt 
Sahib, who is a colt yet unlicked by the mare, 
so young is he. I, and not my brother, was 
beaten, and he is gone to the west — I do not 
know where. 

But, above all things, write — so that Sahibs 
may read, and his disgrace be accomplished — 


232 


GEMINI 


that Ram Dass, my brother, son of Purun 
Dass, Mahajun of Pali, is a swine and a night- 
thief, a taker of life, an eater of flesh, a jackal- 
spawn without beauty, or faith, or cleanliness, 
or honor ! 


AT TWENTY-TWO 



<4 




I 








AT TWENTY-TWO 


Narrow as the womb, deep as the Pit, and dark as 
the heart of a man . — Sonthal Miner’s Proverb, 

< < A WEAVER went out to reap but stayed 
to unravel the corn-stalks. Ha ! Ha ! 
Ha ! Is there any sense in a weaver ?” 

Janki Meah glared at Kundoo, but as Janki 
Meah was blind, Kundoo, was not impressed. 
He had come to argue with Janki Meah, and if 
chance favored, to make love to the old man’s 
pretty young wife. 

This was Kundoo’s grievance, and he spoke 
in the name of all the five men who, with Janki 
Meah composed the gang in Number Seven 
gallery of Twenty-Two. Janki Meah had been 
blind for the thirty years during which he had 
served the Jimahari Collieries with pick and 
crowbar. All through those thirty years he 
had regularly, every morning before going 
down, drawn from the overseer his allowance 
of lamp-oil — just as if he had been an eyed 
miner. What Kundoo’s gang resented, as hun- 
dreds of gangs had resented before, was Janki 
Meah’s selfishness. He would not add the oil 

235: 


236 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


to the common stock of his gang, but would 
save and sell it. 

‘‘I knew these workings before you were 
born,” Janki Meah used to reply: don't 

want the light to get my coal out by, and I am 
not going to help you. The oil is mine, and I 
intend to keep it.” 

A strange man in many ways was Janki 
Meah, the white-haired, hot tempered, sight- 
less weaver who had turned pitman. All day 
long — except on Sundays and Mondays when 
he was usually drunk — he worked in the 
Twenty-Two shaft of the Jimahari Colliery as 
cleverly as a man with all the senses. At even- 
ing he went up in the great steam-hauled cage 
to the pit-bank, and there called for his pony — 
a rusty, coal-dusty beast, nearly as old as Janki 
Meah. The pony would come to his side, and 
Janki Mc'^h would clamber on to its back and 
be taken at once to the plot of land which he, 
like the other miners, received from the Jima- 
hari Company. The pony knew that place, and 
when, after six years, the Company changed all 
the allotments to prevent the miners from ac- 
quiring proprietary rights, Janki Meah repre- 
sented, with tears in his eyes, that were his 
holdings shifted, he would never be able to find 
his way to the new one. ^‘My horse only 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


237 


knows that place,” pleaded Janki Meah, and so 
he was allowed to keep his land. 

On the strength of this concession and his 
accumulated oil-savings, Janki Meah took a 
second wife — a girl of the Jolaha main stock 
of the Meahs, and singularly beautiful. Janki 
Meah could not see her beauty; wherefore he 
took her on trust, and forbade her to go down 
the pit. He had not worked for thirty years in 
the dark without knowing that the pit was no 
place for pretty women. He loaded her with 
ornaments — not brass or pewter, but real silver 
ones — and she rewarded him by flirting outra- 
geously with Kundoo of Number Seven gallery 
gang. Kundoo was really the gang-head, but 
Janki Meah insisted upon all the work being 
entered in his own name, and chose the men 
that he worked with. Custom — stronger even 
than the Jimahari Company — -dictated that 
Janki, by right of his years, should manage 
these things, and should also work despite his 
blindness. In Indian mines where they cut into 
the solid coal with the pick and clear it out 
from floor to ceiling, he could come to no great 
harm. At Home, where they undercut the coal 
and bring it down in crashing avalanches 
from the roof, he would never have been al- 
lowed to set foot in a pit. He was not a popu- 


238 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


lar man, because of his oil-savings ; but all the 
gangs admitted that Janki knew all the khads, 
or workings, that had ever been sunk or 
worked since the Jimahari Company first 
started operations on the Tarachunda fields. 

Pretty little Unda only knew that her old 
husband was a fool who could be managed. 
She took no interest in the collieries except in 
so far as they swallowed up Kundoo five days 
out of the seven, and covered him with coal- 
dust. Kundoo was a great workman, and did 
his best not to get drunk, because, when he 
had saved forty rupees, Unda was to steal 
everything that she could find in Janki’s house 
and run with Kundoo to a land where there 
were no mines, and every one kept three fat 
bullocks and milch-buffalo. While this scheme 
ripened it was his custom to drop in upon 
Janki and worry him about the oil savings. 
Unda sat in a corner and nodded approval. 
On the night when Kundoo had quoted that 
objectionable proverb about weavers, Janki 
grew angry. 

‘'Listen, you pig,’’ said he, “blind I am, and 
old I am, but, before ever you were born, I was 
grey among the eoal. Even in the days when 
the Twenty-Two khad was unsunk and there 
were not two thousand men here, I was 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


239 


known to have all knowledge of the pits. What 
khad is there that I do not know, from the 
bottom of the shaft to the end of the last 
drive? Is it the Baromba khad, the oldest, or 
the Twenty-Two where Tibu’s gallery runs up 
to Number Five?” 

‘‘Hear the old fool talk !” said Kundoo, nod- 
ding to Unda. “No gallery of Twenty-Twr 
will cut into Five before the end of the Rains. 
We have a month’s solid coal before us. The 
Babuji says so.” 

“Babuji! Pigji! Dogji! What do these fat 
slugs from Calcutta know? He draws and 
draws and draws, and talks and talks and 
talks, and his maps are all wrong. I, Janki, 
know that this is so. When a man has been 
shut up in the dark for thirty years, God gives 
him knowledge. The old gallery that Tibu’s 
gang made is not six feet from Number Five.” 

“Without doubt God gives the blind knowl- 
edge,” said Kundoo, with a look at Unda. 
“Let it be as you say. I, for my part, do not 
know where lies the gallery of Tibu’s gang, 
but I am not a withered monkey who needs oil 
to grease his joints with.” 

Kundoo swung out of the hut laughing, and 
Unda giggled. Janki turned his sightless eyes 
toward his wife and swore. “I have land, and 


240 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


I have sold a great deal of lamp-oil/’ mused 
Janki ; “but I was a fool to marry this child.” 

A week later the Rains set in with a ven- 
geance, and the gangs paddled about in coal- 
slush at the pit-banks. Then the big mine 
pumps were made ready, and the Manager of 
the Colliery ploughed through the wet toward 
the Tarachunda River swelling between its 
soppy banks. “Lord send that this beastly 
beck doesn’t mis-behave,” said the Manager, 
piously, and he went to take counsel with his 
Assistant about the pumps. 

But the Tarachunda misbehaved very much 
indeed. After a fall of three inches of rain in 
an hour it was obliged to do something. It 
topped its bank and joined the flood water that 
was hemmed between two low hills just where 
the embankment of the Colliery main line 
crossed. When a large part of a rain-fed 
river, and a few acres of flood-water, made a 
dead set for a nine-foot culvert, the culvert 
may spout its finest, but the water cannot all 
get out. The Manager pranced upon one leg 
with excitement, and his language Vv^as im- 
proper. 

He had reason to swear, because he knew 
that one inch of water on land meant a pres- 
sure of one hundred tons to the acre ; and here 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


241 


were about five feet of water forming, behind 
the railway embankment, over the shallower 
workings of Twenty-Two. You must under- 
stand that, in a coal-mine, the coal nearest the 
surface is worked first from the central shaft. 
That is to say, the miners may clear out the 
stuff to within ten, twenty, or thirty feet of the 
surface, and when all is worked out, leave only 
a skin of earth upheld by some few pillars of 
coal. In a deep mine where they know that 
they have any amount of material at hand, 
men prefer to get all their mineral out at one 
shaft, rather than make a number of little holes 
to tap the comparatively unimportant surface- 
coal. 

And the Manager watched the flood. 

The culvert spouted a nine-foot gush; but 
the water still formed, and word was sent to 
clear the men out of Twenty-Two. The cages 
came up crammed and crammed again with the 
men nearest the pit-eye, as they call the place 
where you can see daylight from the bottom of 
the main shaft. All away and away up the 
long black galleries the flare-lamps were wink- 
ing and dancing like so many fireflies, and the 
men and the women waited for the clanking, 
rattling, thundering cages to come down and 
fly up again. But the outworkings were very 


242 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


far off, and word could not be passed quickly, 
though the heads of the gangs and the Assist- 
ant shouted and swore and trampled and 
stumbled. The Manager kept one eye on the 
great troubled pool behind the embankment, 
and prayed that the culvert would give way 
and let the water through in time. With the 
other eye he watched the cages come up and 
saw the headmen counting the roll of the 
gangs. With all his heart and soul he swore 
at the winder who controlled the iron drum 
that wound up the wire rope on which hung 
•the cages. 

In a little time there was a down-draw in 
the water behind the embankment — a sucking 
whirlpool, all yellow and yeasty. The water 
had smashed through the skin of the earth and 
was pouring into the old shallow workings of 
Twenty-Two. 

Deep down below, a rush of black water 
caught the last gang waiting for the cage, and 
as they clambered in, the whirl was about their 
waists. The cage reached the pit-bank, and the 
Manager called the roll. The gangs were all 
safe except Gang Janki, Gang Mogul, and 
Gang Rahim, eighteen men, with perhaps ten 
basket-women who loaded the coal into the 
little iron carriage that ran on the tramways of 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


243 


the main galleries. These gangs were in the 
out-workings, three-quarters of a mile away, 
on the extreme fringe of the mine. Once more 
the cage went down, but with only two English 
men in it, and dropped into a swirling, roaring 
current that had almost touched the roof of 
some of the lower side-galleries. One of the 
wooden balks with which they had propped 
the old workings shot past on the current, just 
missing the cage. 

‘If we don’t want our ribs knocked out, 
we’d better go,” said the Manager. “We can’t 
even save the Company’s props.” 

The cage drew out of the water with a 
splash, and a few minutes later, it was officially 
reported that there were at least ten feet of 
water in the pit’s eye. Now ten feet of water 
there meant that all other places in the mine 
were flooded except such places as were more 
than ten feet above the level of the bottom of 
the shaft. The deep workings would be full, 
the main galleries would be full, but in the high 
workings reached by inclines from the main 
roads, there would be a certain amount of air 
cut off, so to speak, by the water and squeezed 
up by it. The little science-primers explain 
how water behaves when you pour it down 
test-tubes. The flooding of Twenty-Two was 
an illustration on a large scale. 


244 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


♦ ♦ ♦ 3k ♦ ★ 

the Holy Grove, what has happened to 
the air!” It was a Sonthal gangman of 
Gang Mogul in Number Nine gallery, and he 
was driving a six-foot way through the coal. 
Then there was a rush from the other gal- 
leries, and Gang Janki and Gang Rahim 
stumbled up with their basket-women. 

‘Water has come in the mine,” they said, 
“and there is no way of getting out.” 

“I went down,” said Janki- — “down the slope 
of my gallery, and I felt the water.” 

“There has been no water in the cutting in 
our time,” clamored the women. “Why can- 
not we go away?” 

“Be silent!” said Janki. “Long ago, when 
my father was here, water came to Ten — no. 
Eleven — cutting, and there was great trouble. 
Let us get away to where the air is better.” 

The three gangs and the basket-women left 
Number Nine gallery and went further up 
Number Sixteen. At one turn of the road they 
could see the pitchy black water lapping on the 
coal. It had touched the roof of a gallery that 
they knew well — a gallery where they used to 
smoke their huqas and manage their flirta- 
tions. Seeing this, they called aloud upon their 
Gods, and the Mehas, who are thrice bastered 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


245 


Muhammadans, strove to recollect the name 
of the Prophet. They came to a great open 
square whence nearly all the coal had been ex- 
tracted. It was the end of the out-workings, 
and the end of the mine. 

Far away down the gallery a small pump- 
ing-engine, used for keeping dry a deep work- 
ing and fed with steam from above, was 
throbbing faithfully. They heard it cease. 

‘They have cut off the steam,” said Kundoo, 
hopefully. “They have given the order to 
use all the steam for the pit-bank pumps. They 
will clear out the water.” 

“If the water has reached the smoking-gal- 
lery,” said Janki, “all the Company’s pumps 
can do nothing for three days.” 

“It is very hot,” moaned Jasoda, the Meah 
basket-woman. “There is a very bad air here 
because of the lamps.” 

“Put them out,” said Janki; “why do you 
want lamps?” The lamps were put out and 
the company sat still in the utter dark. Some- 
body rose quietly and began walking over the 
coals. It was Janki, who was touching the 
walls with his hands. “Where is the ledge?” 
he murmured to himself. 

“Sit, sit!” said Kundoo. “If we die, we die. 
The air is very bad.” 


246' 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


But Janki still stumbled and crept and 
tapped with his pick upon the walls. The 
women rose to their feet. 

“Stay all where you are. Without the lamps 
you cannot see, and I — I am always seeing,” 
said Janki. Then he paused, and called out : 
“Oh you who have been in the cutting more 
than ten years, what is the name of this open 
place? I am an old man and I have forgotten.” 

“Bullia’s Room,” answered the Sonthal, 
who had complained of the vileness of the air. 

“Again,” said Janki. 

“Bullia's Room.” 

“Then I have found it,” said Janki. “The 
name only had slipped my memory. Tibu’s 
gang’s gallery is here.” 

“A lie,” said Kundoo. “There have been no 
galleries in this place since my day.” 

“Three paces was the depth of the ledge,” 
muttered Janki, without heeding — “and — oh, 
my poor bones ! — I have found it ! It is here, 
up this ledge. Come all you, one by one, to the 
place of my voice, and I will count you.” 

There was a rush in the dark and Janki felt 
the first man’s face hit his knees as the Sonthal 
scrambled up the ledge. 

“Who?” cried Janki. 

“I, Sunua Manji.” 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


247 


“Sit you down,” said Janki. “Who next?” 

One by one the women and the men crawled 
up the ledge which ran along one side of “Bul- 
lia’s Room.” Degraded Muhammadan, pig- 
eating Musahr and wild Sonthal, Janki ran 
his hand over them all. 

“Now follow after,” said he, “catching hold 
of my heel, and the women catching the men’s 
clothes.” He did not ask whether the men had 
brought their picks with them. A miner, black 
or white, does not drop his pick. One by one, 
Janki leading, they crept into the old gallery — 
a six-foot way with a scant four feet from 
thill to roof. 

“The air is better here,” said Jasoda. They 
could hear her heart beating in thick, sick 
bumps. 

“Slowly, slowly,” said Janki. “I am an old 
man, and I forget many things. This is 
Tibu’s gallery, but where are the four bricks 
where they used to put their huqa fire on when 
the Sahibs never saw? Slowly, slowly, O you 
people behind.” 

They heard his hands disturbing the small 
coal on the floor of the gallery and then a dull 
sound. “This is one unbaked brick, and this is 
another and another. Kundoo is a young man 
—let him come forward. Put a knee upon this 


248 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


brick and strike here. When Tibu's gang 
were at dinner on the last day before the good 
coal ended, they heard the men of Five on the 
other side, and Five worked their gallery two 
Sundays later — or it may have been one. 
Strike there, Kundoo, but give me room to go 
back.” 

Kundoo, doubting, drove the pick, but the 
first soft crush of the coal was a call to him. He 
was fighting for his life and for Unda — pretty 
little Unda with rings on all her toes — for 
Unda and the forty rupees. The women sang 
the Song of the Pick — the terrible, slow, 
swinging melody with the muttered chorus 
that repeats the sliding of the loosened coal, 
and, to each cadence, Kundoo smote in the 
black dark. When he could do no more, Su- 
nua Manji took the pick, and struck for his 
life and his wife, and his village beyond the 
blue hills over the Tarachunda River. An hour 
the men worked, and then the women cleared 
away the coal. 

‘Tt is farther than I thought,” said Janki. 
“The air is very bad; but strike, Kundoo, 
strike hard.” 

For the fifth time Kundoo took up the pick 
as the Sonthal crawled back. The song had 
scarcely recommenced when it was broken by a 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


249 


yell from Ktmdoo that echoed down the gal- 
lery: *^Par hau! Par hau! We are through, 
we are through!’' The imprisoned air in the 
mine shot through the opening, and the wo- 
men at the far end of the gallery heard the 
water rush through the pillars of ‘‘Bullia’s 
Room” and roar against the ledge. Having 
fulfilled the law under which it worked, it rose 
no farther. The women screamed and pressed 
forward. ‘'The water has come — we shall be 
killed I Let us go.” 

Kundoo crawled through the gap and 
found himself in a propped gallery by the 
simple process of hitting his head against a 
beam. 

“Do I know the pits or do I not ?” chuckled 
Janki. “This is the Number Five; go you out 
slowly, giving me your names. Ho ! Rahim, 
count your gang! Now let us go forward, 
each catching hold of the other as before.” 

They formed a line in the darkness and 
Janki led them — for a pit-man in a strange pit 
is only one degree less liable to err than an 
ordinary mortal underground for the first 
time. At last they saw a flare-lamp, and 
Gangs Janki, Mogul, and Rahim of Twenty- 
Two stumbled dazed into the glare of the 
draught-furnace at the bottom of Five; Janki 


250 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


feeling his way and the rest behind. 

‘‘Water has come into Twenty-Two. God 
knows where are the others. I have brought 
these men from Tibu’s gallery in our cutting; 
making connection through the north side of 
the gallery. Take us to the cage/’ said Janki 
Meah. 

:|« * * * * * 

At the pit-bank of Twenty-Two, some thou- 
sand people clamored and wept and shouted. 
One hundred men — one thousand men — had 
been drowned in the cutting. They would all 
go to their homes to-morrow. Where were 
their men? Little Unda, her cloth drenched 
with the rain, stood at the pit-mouth calling 
down the shaft for Kundoo. They had swung 
the cages clear of the mouth, and her only 
answer was the murmur of the flood in the pit’s 
eye two hundred and sixty feet below. 

“Look after that woman ! She’ll chuck her- 
self down the shaft in a minute,” shouted the 
Manager. 

But he need not have troubled; LFnda was 
afraid of Death. She wanted Kundoo. The 
Assistant was watching the flood and seeing 
how far he could wade into it. There was a 
lull in the water, and the whirlpool had slack- 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


251 


ened. The mine was full, and the people at 
the pit-bank howled. 

“My faith we shall be lucky if we have five 
hundred hands on the place to-morrow!” said 
the Manager. There’s some chance yet of run- 
ning a temporary dam across that water. 
Shove in anything — tubs and bullock-carts if 
you haven’t enough bricks. Make them work 
nozv if they never worked before. Hi! you 
gangers, make them work.” 

Little by little the crowd was broken into de- 
tachments, and pushed toward the water with 
promises of overtime. The dam-making be- 
gan, and when it was fairly under way, the 
Manager thought that the hour had come for 
the pumps. There was no fresh inrush into the 
mines. The tall, red, iron-clamped pump-beam 
rose and fell, and the pumps snored and gut- 
tered and shrieked as the first water poured 
out of the pipe. 

“We must run her all to-night,” said the 
Manager, wearily, “but there’s no hope for the 
poor devils down below. Look here, Gur Sa- 
hai, if you are proud of your engines, show me 
what they can do now.” 

Gur Sahai grinned and nodded, with his 
right hand upon the lever and an oil-can in his 
left. He could do no more than he was doing, 


252 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


but he could keep that up till the dawn. Were 
the Company’s pumps to be beaten by the vag- 
aries of that troublesome Tarachunda River? 
Never, never! And the pumps sobbed and 
panted: “Never, never!” The Manager sat in 
the shelter of the pit-bank roofing, trying to 
dry himself by the pump-boiler fire, and in the 
dreary dusk, he saw the crowds on the dam 
scatter and fly. 

“That’s the end,” he groaned. “ ’Twill take 
us six weeks to persuade ’em that we haven’t 
tried to drown their mates on purpose. Oh, 
for a decent, rational Geordie!” 

But the flight had no panic in it. Men had 
run over from Five with astounding news, and 
the foremen could not hold their gangs to- 
gether. Presently, surrounded by a clamorous 
crew. Gangs Rahim, Mogul, and Janki, and ten 
basket-women, walked up to report them- 
selves and pretty little Unda stole away to 
Janki’s hut to prepare his evening meal. 

“Alone I found the way,” explained Janki 
Meah, “and now will the Company give me 
pension?” 

The simple pit-folk shouted and leaped and 
went back to the dam, reassured in their old 
belief that, whatever happened, so great was 
the power of the Company whose salt they 


AT TWENTY-TWO 


253 


ate, none of them could be killed. But Gur 
Sahai only bared his white teeth and kept his 
hand upon the lever and proved his pumps to 
the uttermost. 

****** 

“I say,” said the Assistant to the Manager, 
a week later, “do you recollect Germinal?” 

“Yes. ’Queer thing. I thought of it in the 
cage when that balk went by. Why ?” 

“Oh, this business seems to be Germinal up- 
side down. Janki was in my veranda all this 
morning, telling me that Kundoo had eloped 
with his wife — Unda or Anda, I think her 
name was.” 

“Hillo ! And those were the cattle that you 
risked your life to clear out of Twenty-Two !” 

“No — I was thinking of the Company’s 
props, not the Company’s men.” 

“Sounds better to say so now; but I don’t 
believe you, old fellow.” 





IN FLOOD TIME 



IN FLOOD TIME 


Tweed said tae Till: 

“What gars ye rin sae Still?” 

Till said tae Tweed: 

“Though ye rin wi’ speed 
An’ I rin slaw — 

Yet where ye droon ae man 
I droon twa.” 

T here is no getting over the river to- 
night, Sahib. They say that a bullock- 
cart has been washed down already, and the 
ekka that went over a half hour before you 
came, has not yet reached the far side. Is the 
Sahib in haste? I will drive the ford-elephant 
in to show him. Ohe, mahout there in the 
shed ! Bring out Ram Pershad, and if he will 
face the current, good. An elephant never lies. 
Sahib, and Ram Pershad is separated from his 
friend Kala Nag. He, too, wishes to cross to 
the far side. Well done ! Well done ! my King! 
Go half way across, mahout ji, and see what the 
river says. Well done. Ram Pershad! Pearl 
among elephants, go into the river ! Hit him on 
the head, fool! Was the goad made only to 
scratch thv own fat back with, bastard ? 

257 


258 


IN FLOOD TIME 


Strike! Strike! What are the boulders to 
thee, Ram Pershad, my Rustum, my mountain 
of strength? Go in! Go in! 

No, Sahib! It is useless. You can hear him 
trumpet. He is telling Kala Nag that he can- 
not come over. See! He has swung round 
and is shaking his head. He is no fool. He 
knows what the Barhwi means when it is 
angry. Aha! Indeed, thou art no fool, my 
child! Salaam, Ram Pershad, Bahadur! Take 
him under the trees, mahout, and see that he 
gets his spices. Well done, thou chiefest 
among tuskers. Salaam to the Sirkar and go 
to sleep. 

What is to be done? The Sahib must wait 
till the river goes down. It will shrink to- 
morrow morning, if God pleases, or the day 
after at the latest. Now why does the Sahib 
get so angry? I am his servant. Before God, 
I did not create this stream ! What can I do ? 
My hut and all that is therein is at the service 
of the Sahib, and it is beginning to rain. Come 
away, my Lord. How will the river go down 
for your throwing abuse at it ? In the old days 
the English people were not thus. The fire-car- 
riage has made them soft. In the old days, 
when they drave behind horses by day or by 
night, they said naught if a river barred the 


IN FLOOD TIME 


.259 

way, or a carriage sat down in the mud. It 
was the will of God — not like a fire carriage 
which goes and goes and goes, and would go 
though all the devils in the land hung on to 
its trail. The fire-carriage hath spoiled the 
English people. After all, what is a day lost, 
or, for that matter, what are two days ? Is the 
Sahib going to his own wedding, that he is so 
mad with haste ? Ho I Ho ! Ho ! I am an old 
man and see few Sahibs. Forgive me if I have 
forgotten the respect that is due to them. The 
Sahib is not angry? 

His own wedding! Ho! Ho! Ho! The 
mind of an old man is like the numah-trec. 
Fruit, bud, blossom, and the dead leaves of all 
the years of the past flourish together. Old 
and new and that which is gone out of remem- 
brance, all three are there! Sit on the bed- 
stead, Sahib, and drink milk. Or — would the 
Sahib in truth care to drink my tobacco ? It is 
good. It is the tobacco of Nuklao. My son, 
who is in service there sent it to me. Drink, 
then. Sahib, if you know how to handle the 
tube. The Sahib takes it like a Musalman. 
Wah! Wah! Where did he learn that? His 
own wedding! Ho! Ho! Ho! The Sahib says 
that there is no wedding in the matter at all? 
Now is it likely that the Sahib would speak 


26 o 


IN FLOOD TIME 


true talk to me who am only a black man? 
Small wonder, then that he is in haste. Thirty 
years have I beaten the gong at this ford, but 
never have I seen a Sahib in such haste. Thirty 
years, Sahib ! That is a very long time. 
Thirty years ago this ford was on the track of 
the bunjaras, and I have seen two thousand 
pack-bullocks cross in one night. Now the rail 
has come, and the fire carriage says buz-buz- 
bu:^, and a hundred lakhs of maunds slide 
across that big bridge. It is very wonderful ; 
but the ford is lonely now that there are no 
bunjaras to camp under the trees. 

Nay, do not trouble to look at the sky with- 
out. It will rain till the dawn. Listen ! The 
boulders are talking to-night in the bed of the 
river. Hear them! They would be husking 
your bones. Sahib, had you tried to cross. See, 
I will shut the door and no rain can enter. 
Wahi! A hi! . Ugh! Thirty years on the banks 
of the ford ! An old man am I and — where is 
the oil for the lamp? 

4c * * * 

Your pardon, but, because of my years, I 
sleep no sounder than a dog ; and you moved to 
the door. Look then, Sahib. Look and listen. 
A full half kos from bank to bank is the stream 


IN FLOOD TIME 


261 


now ^you can see it under the stars — and 
there are ten feet of water therein. It will not 
shrink because of an anger in your eyes, and it 
will^ not be quiet on account of your curses. 
Which is louder, Sahib — your voice or the 
voice of the river ? Call to it — perhaps it will 
be ashamed. Lie down and sleep afresh, Sa- 
hib. I know the anger of the Barhwi when 
there has fallen rain in the foot-hills. I swam 
the flood, once, on a night tenfold worse than 
this, and by the Favor of God I was released 
from Death when I had come to the very gates 
thereof. 

May I tell the tale? Very good talk. I will 
fill the pipe anew. 

Thirty years ago it was, when I was a young 
man and had but newly come to the ford. I 
was strong then, and the hnnjaras had no 
doubt when I said ''this ford is clear.’’ I have 
toiled all night up to my shoulder-blades in 
running water amid a hundred bullocks mad 
with fear, and have brought them across losing 
not a hoof. When all was done I fetched the 
shivering men, and they gave me for reward 
the pick of their cattle — the bell-bullock of the 
drove. So great was the honor in which I was 
held ! But, to-day when the rain falls and the 
river rises, I creep into my hut and whimper 


262 


IN FLOOD TIME 


like a dog. My strength is gone from me. I 
am an old man and the fire-carriage has made 
the ford desolate. They were wont to call me 
the Strong One of the Barhwi. 

Behold my face, Sahib — it is the face of a 
monkey. And my arm — it is the arm of an old 
woman. I swear to you. Sahib, that a woman 
has loved this face and has rested in the hollow 
of this arm. Twenty years ago. Sahib. Be- 
lieve me, this was true talk — twenty years ago. 

Come to the door and look across. Can you 
see a thin fire very far away down the stream ? 
That is the temple fire, in the shrine of Hanu- 
man, of the village of Pateera. North, under 
the big star, is the village itself, but it is hid- 
den by a bend of the river. Is that far to swim. 
Sahib? Would you take off your clothes and 
adventure? Yet I swam to Pateera — not once 
but many times ; and there are muggers in the 
river too. 

Love knows no caste; else why should I, a 
Musalman and the son of a Musalman, have 
sought a Hindu woman — a widow of the 
Hindus — the sister of the headman of Pa- 
teera ? But it was even so. They of the head- 
man^s household came on a pilgrimage to Mut- 
tra when She was but newly a bride. Silver 
tires were upon the wheels of the bullock-cart, 


IN FLOOD TIME 


263 


and silken curtains hid the woman. Sahib, I 
made no haste in their conveyance, for the 
wind parted the curtains and I saw Her. When 
they returned from pilgrimage the boy that 
was Her husband had died, and I saw Her 
again in the bullock- cart. By God, these Hin- 
dus are fools ! What was it to me whether She 
was Hindu or Jain — scavenger, leper, or 
whole? I would have married Her and made 
Her a home by the ford. The Seventh of the 
Nine Bars says that a man may not marry one 
of the idolaters ? Is that truth ? Both Shiahs 
and Sunnis say that a Musalman may not 
marry one of the idolaters? Is the Sahib a 
priest then, that he knows so much? I will 
tell him something that he does not know. 
There is neither Shiah nor Sunni, forbidden 
nor idolater, in Love; and the Nine Bars are 
but nine little fagots that the flame of Love ut- 
terly burns away. In truth, I would have 
taken Her; but what could I do? The head- 
man would have sent his men to break my 
head with staves. I am not — I was not — 
afraid of any five men ; but against half a vil- 
lage who can prevail? 

Therefore it was my custom, these things 
having been arranged between us twain, to go 
by night to the village of Pateera, and there we 


264 


IN FLOOD TIME 


met among the crops; no man knowing aught 
of the matter. Behold, now! I was won't to 
cross here, skirting the jungle to the river bend 
where the railway bridge is, and thence across 
the elbow of land to Pateera. The light of 
the shrine was my guide when the nights were 
dark. That jungle near the river is very full of 
snakes — little karaits that sleep on the sand — 
and moreover, Her brothers would have slain 
me had they found me in the crops. But none 
knew — none knew save She and I; and the 
blow sand of the river-bed covered the track 
of my feet. In the hot months it was an easy 
thing to pass from the ford to Pateera, and in 
the first Rains, when the river rose slowly, it 
was an easy thing also. I set the strength of 
my body against the strength of the stream, 
and nightly I ate in my hut here and drank at 
Pateera yonder. She had said that one Hir- 
nam Singh, a thief, had sought Her, and he 
was of a village up the river but on the same 
bank. All Sikhs are dogs, and they have re- 
fused in their folly that good gift of God — 
tobacco. I was ready to destroy Hirnam 
Singh that ever he had come nigh Her ; and the 
more because he had sworn to Her that She 
had a lover, and that he would lie in wait and 
give the name to the headman unless She 


IN FLOOD TIME 265 

went away with him. What curs are these 
Sikhs ! 

After that news, I swam always with a little 
sharp knife in my belt, and evil would it have 
been for a man had he stayed me. I knew not 
the face of Hirnam Singh, but I would have 
killed any who came between me and Her. 

Upon a night in the beginning of the Rains, 
I was minded to go across to Pateera, albeit 
the river was angry. Now the nature of the 
Barhwi is this. Sahib. In twenty breaths it 
comes down from the Plills, a wall three feet 
high, and I have seen it, between the lighting 
of a fire and the cooking of a chupatty, grow 
from a runnel to a sister of the Jumna. 

When I left this bank there was a shoal a 
half mile down, and I made shift to fetch it 
and draw breath there ere going forward ; for 
I felt the hands of the river heavy upon my 
heels. Yet what will a young man do for 
Love’s sake? There was but little light from 
the stars, and mid-way to the shoal a branch of 
the stinking deodar tree brushed my mouth as 
I swam. That was a sign of heavy rain in the 
foot-hills and beyond, for the deodar is a 
strong tree, not easily shaken from the hill- 
sides. I made haste, the river aiding me, but 
ere I had touched the shoal, the pulse of the 


266 


IN FLOOD TIME 


stream beat, as it were, within me and around, 
and, behold, the shoal was gone and I rode 
high on the crest of a wave that ran from bank 
to bank. Has the Sahib ever been cast into 
much water that fights and will not let a man 
use his limbs? To me, my head upon the 
water, it seemed as though there were naught 
but water to the world’s end, and the river 
drave me with its driftwood. A man is a very 
little thing in the belly of a flood. And this 
flood, though I knew it not, was the Great 
Flood about which men talk still. My liver 
was dissolved and I lay like a log upon my 
back in the fear of Death. There were living 
things in the water, crying and howling griev- 
ously — ^beasts of the forest and cattle, and once 
the voice of a man asking for help. But the 
rain came and lashed the water white, and 1 
heard no more save the roar of the boulders 
below and the roar of the rain above. Thus I 
was whirled down-stream, wrestling for the 
breath in me. It is very hard to die when one 
is young. Can the Sahib, standing here, see 
the railway bridge ? Look, there are the lights 
of the mail-train going to Peshawur! The 
bridge is now twenty feet above the river, but 
upon that night the water was roaring against 
the lattice-work and against the lattice came I 


IN FLOOD TIME 


267 


feet first. But much driftwood was piled 
there and upon the piers, and I took no great 
hurt. Only the river pressed me as a strong 
man presses a weaker. Scarcely could I take 
hold of the lattice-work and crawl to the upper 
boom. Sahib, the water was foaming across 
the rails a foot deep! Judge therefore what 
manner of flood it must have been. I could not 
hear. I could not see. I could but lie on the 
boom and pant for breath. 

After a while the rain ceased and there came 
out in the sky certain new washed stars, and 
by their light I saw that there was no end to 
the black water as far as the eye could travel, 
and the water had risen upon the rails. There 
were dead beasts in the driftwood on the piers, 
and others caught by the neck in the lattice- 
work, and others not yet drowned who strove 
to find a foothold on the lattice-work — buffa- 
loes and kine, and wild pig, and deer one or 
two, and snakes and jackals past all counting. 
Their bodies were black upon the left side of 
the bridge, but the smaller of them were forced 
through the lattice-work and whirled down- 
stream. 

Thereafter the stars died and the rain came 
down afresh and the river rose yet more, and I 
felt the bridge begin to stir under me as a man 


268 


IN FLOOD TIME 


stirs in his sleep ere he wakes. But I was not 
afraid, Sahib. I swear to you that I was not 
afraid, though I had no power in my limbs. I 
knew that I should not die until I had seen Her 
once more. But I was very cold, and I felt that 
the bridge must go. 

There was a trembling in the water, such a 
trembling as goes before the coming of a great 
wave, and the bridge lifted its flank to the rush 
of that coming so that the right lattice dipped 
under water and the left rose clear. On my 
beard. Sahib, I am speaking God’s truth ! As a 
Mirzapore stone-boot careens to the wind, so 
the Barhwi Bridge turned. Thus and in no 
other manner, 

I slid from the boom into deep water, and be- 
hind me came the wave of the wrath of the 
river. I heard its voice and the scream of the 
middle part of the bridge as it moved from the 
pier and sank, and I knew no more till I rose in 
the middle of the great flood. I put forth my 
hand to swim, and lo! it fell upon the knotted 
hair of the head of a man. He was dead, for 
no one but I, the Strong One of Barhwi, could 
have lived in that race. He had been dead full 
two days, for he rode high, wallowing, and 
was an aid to me. I laughed then, knowing for 
a surety that I should yet see Her and take no 


IN FLOOD TIME 


269 


harm; and I twisted my fingers in the hair of 
the man, for I was far spent, and together we 
went down the stream — he the dead and I the 
living. Lacking that help I should have sunk : 
the cold was in my marrows, and my flesh was 
ribbed and sodden on mey bones. But he had 
no fear who had known the uttermost of the 
power of the river ; and I let him go where he 
chose. At last we came into the power of a side- 
current that set to the right bank, and I strove 
with my feet to draw with it. But the dead 
man swung heavily in the whirl, and I feared 
that some branch had struck him and that he 
would sink. The tops of the tamarisk brushed 
my knees, so I knew we were come into flood- 
water above the crops, and, after, I let down 
my legs and felt bottom — the ridge of a field — 
and, after, the dead man stayed upon a knoll 
under a fig-tree, and I drew my body from the 
water rejoicing. 

Does the Sahib know whither the backwash 
of the flood had borne me? To the knoll which 
is the eastern boundary- mark of the village of 
Pateera! No other place. I drew the dead 
man up on the grass for the service that he had 
done me, and also because I knew not whether 
I should need him again. Then I went, crying 
thrice like a jackal, to the appointed place 


270 


IN FLOOD TIME 


which was near the byre of the headman’s 
house. But my Love was already there, 
weeping. She feared that the flood had swept 
my hut at the Barhwi Ford. When I came 
softly through the ankle-deep water, She 
thought it was a ghost and would have fled, 
but I put my arms round Her, and — I was no 
ghost in those days, though I am an old man 
now. Ho! Ho! Dried corn, in truth. Maize 
without juice. Ho! Ho!" 

I told Her the story of the breaking of the 
Barhwi Bridge, and She said that I was great- 
er than mortal man, for none may cross the 
Barhwi in full flood, and I had seen what never 
man had seen before. Hand in hand we went 
to the knoll where the dead lay, and I showed 
Her by what help I had made the ford. She 
looked also upon the body under the stars, for 
the latter end of the night was clear, and hid 
Her face in Her hands, crying : “It is the body 
of Hirnam Singh !” I said : “The swine is of 
more use dead than living, my Beloved,” and 
She said : “Surely, for he has saved the dear- 
est life in the world to my love. None the less, 
he cannot stay here, for that would bring 
shame upon me.” The body was not a gunshot 
from her door. 

1 I grieve to say that the Warden of Barhwi ford is responsible hero 
for two very bad puns In the vernacular.— R. K. 


IN FLOOD TIME 


271 


Then said I, rolling the body with my hands : 
‘^God hath judged between us, Hirnam 
Singh, that thy blood might not be upon my 
head. Now, whether I have done thee a wrong 
in keeping thee from the burning-ghat, do thou 
and the crows settle together.” So I cast 
him adrift into the flood-water, and he was 
drawn out to the open, ever wagging his thick 
black beard like a priest under the pulpit-board. 
And I saw no more of Hirnam Singh. 

Before the breaking of the day we two 
parted, and I moved toward such of the jungle 
as was not flooded. With the full light I saw 
what I had done in the darkness, and the bones 
of my body were loosened in my flesh, for 
there ran two kos of raging water between the 
village of Pateera and the trees of the far 
bank, and, in the middle, the piers of the 
Barhwi Bridge showed like broken teeth 
in the jaw of an old man. Nor was there 
any life upon the waters — neither birds nor 
boats, but only an army of drowned things 
— ^bullocks and horses and men — and the 
river was redder than blood from the clay 
of the foot-hills. Never had I seen such a 
flood — never since that year have I seen 
the like — and, O Sahib, no man living had 
done what I had done. There was no return 


272 


IN FLOOD TIME 


for me that day. Not for all the lands of the 
headman would I venture a second time with- 
out the shield of darkness that cloaks danger. 
I went a kos up the river to the house of a 
blacksmith, saying that the flood had swept me 
from my hut, and they gave me food. Seven 
days I stayed with the blacksmith, till a boat 
came and I returned to my house. There was 
no trace of wall, or roof, or floor — naught but 
a patch of slimy mud. Judge, therefore. Sa- 
hib, how far the river must have risen. 

It was written that I should not die either in 
my house, or in the heart of the Barhwi, or 
under the wreck of the Barhwi Bridge, for 
God sent down Hirnam Singh two days dead, 
though I know not how the man died, to be my 
buoy and support. Hirnam Singh has been 
in Hell these twenty years, and the thought of 
that night must be the flower of his torment. 

Listen, Sahib! The river has changed its 
voice. It is going to sleep before the dawn, to 
which there is yet one hour. With the light it 
will come down afresh. How do I know? 
Have I been here thirtv years without know- 
ing the voice of the river as a father knows the 
voice of his son? Every moment it is talking 
less angrily. I swear that there will be no dan- 
ger for one hour or, perhaps, two. I cannot 


IN FLOOD TIME 


273 


answer for the morning. Be quick, Sahib ! 1 
will call Ram Pershad, and he will not turn 
back this time. Is the paulin tightly corded 
upon all the baggage? Ohe^ mahout with a 
mud head, the elephant for the Sahib, and tell 
them on the far side that there will be no cross- 
ing after daylight. 

Money? Nay, Sahib. I am not of that 
kind. No, not even to give sweetmeats to the 
baby-folk. My house, look you, is empty, and 
I am an old man. 

Dutt, Ram Pershad! Dutt! Dutt! Dutt! 
Good luck go with you, Sahib. 



\ 


THE SENDING OF DANA DA 



THE SENDING OF DANA DA 


When the Devil rides on your chest remember the 
chamar. — Native Proverb. 

O NCE Upon a time, some people in India 
made a new Heaven and a new Earth out 
of broken tea-cups, a missing brooch or two, 
and a hair-brush. These were hidden under 
brushes, or stuffed into holes in the hillside, 
and an entire Civil Service of subordinate Gods 
used to find or mend them again ; and every one 
said: “There are more things in Heaven and 
Earth than are dreamed of in our philoso- 
phy.” Several other things happened also, but 
the Religion never seemed to get much beyond 
its first manifestations; though it added an 
air-line postal service, and orchestral effects In 
order to keep abreast of the times, and choke 
off competition. 

This Religion was too elastic for ordinary 
use. It stretched itself and embraced pieces of 
everything that the medicine-men of all ages 
have manufactured. It approved of and stole 
from Freemasonry; looted the Latter-day 
277 


278 


THE SENDING 


Rosicrucians of half their pet words ; took any 
fragments of Egyptian philosophy that it 
found in the Encyclopedia Britannica; an- 
nexed as many of the Vedas as had been trans- 
lated into French or English, and talked of all 
the rest ; built in the German versions of what 
is left of the Zend Avesta ; encouraged White, 
Grey and Black Magic, including spiritualism, 
palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, hot chest- 
nuts, doubled-kerneled nuts and tallow drop- 
pings; would have adopted Voodoo and Oboe 
had it known anything about them, and 
showed itself, in every way, one of the most 
accommodating arrangements that had ever 
been invented since the birth of the Sea. 

When it was in thorough working order, 
with all the machinery, down to the subscrip- 
tions, complete, Dana Da came from nowhere, 
with nothing in his hands, and wrote a chapter 
in its history which has hitherto been unpub- 
lished. He said that his first name was Dana, 
and his second was Da. Now, setting aside 
Dana of the New York Sun, Dana is a Bhil 
name, and Da fits no native of India unless you 
except the Bengali De as the original spelling. 
Da is Lap or Finnish; and Dana Da was 
neither Finn, Chin, Bhil, Bengali, Lap, Nair, 
Gond, Romaney, Magh, Bokhariot, Kurd, 


OF DANA DA 


279 

Armenian, Levantine, Jew, Persian, Punjabi, 
Madrasi, Parsee, nor anything else known to 
ethnologists. He was simply Dana Da, and 
declined to give further information. For the 
sake of brevity and as roughly indicating his 
origin, he was Called “The Native.” He might 
have been the original Old Man of the Moun- 
tains, who is said to be the only authorized 
head of the Tea-cup Creed. Some people said 
that he was; but Dana Da used to smile and 
deny any connection with the cult; explaining 
that he was an “Independent Experimenter.” 

As I have said he came from nowhere, with 
his hands behind his back, and studied the 
Creed for three weeks; sitting at the feet of 
those best competent to explain its mysteries. 
Then he laughed aloud and went away, but the 
laugh might have been either of devotion or 
derision. 

When he returned he was without money, 
but his pride was unabated. He declared that 
he knew more about the Things in Heaven and 
Earth than those who taught him, and for this 
contumacy was abandoned altogether. 

His next appearance in public life was at a 
big Cantonment in Upper India, and he was 
then telling fortunes with the help of three 
laden dice, a very dirty old cloth, and a little 


28 o 


THE SENDING 


tin box of opium pills. He told better fortunes 
when he was allowed half a bottle of whiskey ; 
but the things which he invented on the opium 
were quite worth the money. He was in re- 
duced circumstances. Among other people’s 
he told the fortune of an Englishman who had 
once been interested in the Simla Creed, but 
who, later on, had married and forgoten all 
his old knowledge in the study of babies and 
things. The Englishman allowed Dana Da to 
tell a fortune for charity’s sake, and gave him 
five rupees, a dinner, and some old clothes. 
When he had eaten, Dana Da professed grati- 
tude, and asked if there were anything he could 
do for his host — in the esoteric line. 

‘Ts there any one that you love ?” said Dana 
Da. The Englishman loved his wife, but had 
no desire to drag her name into the conversa- 
tion. He therefore shook his head. 

“Is there any one that you hate?” said Dana 
Da. The Englishman said that there were sev- 
eral men whom he hated deeply. 

“Very good,” said Dana Da, upon whom the 
whiskey and the opium were beginning to tell. 
“Only give me their names, and I will despatch 
a Sending to them and kill them.” 

Now a Sending is a horrible arrangement, 
first invented, they say, in Iceland. It is a Thing 


OF DANA DA 


281 

sent by a wizard, and may take any form, 
but, most generally, wanders about the land in 
the shape of a little purple cloud till it finds the 
Sendee, and him it kills by changing into the 
form of a horse, or a cat, or a man without a 
face. It is not strictly a native patent, though 
chamars of the skin and hide caste can, if irri- 
tated, despatch a Sending which sits on the 
breast of their enemy by night and nearly kills 
him. Very few natives care to irritate chamars 
for that reason. 

*Xet me despatch a Sending,” said Dana 
Da; am nearly dead now with want, and 
drink, and opium; but I should like to kill a 
man before I die. I can send a Sending any- 
where you choose and in any form except in 
the shape of a man.” 

The Englishman had no friends that he 
wished to kill, but partly to soothe Dana Da, 
whose eyes were rolling and partly to see what 
would be done, he asked whether a modified 
Sending could not be arranged for — such a 
Sending as should make a man’s life a burden 
to him, and yet do him no harm. If this were 
possible, he notified his willingness to give 
Dana Da ten rupees for the job. 

“I am not what I was once,” said Dana Da, 
“and I must take the money because I am poor. 
To what Englishman shall I send it ?” 


282 


THE SENDING 


“Send a Sending to Lone Sahib/’ said the 
Englishman, naming a man who had been most 
bitter in rebuking him for his apostasy from 
the Tea-cup Creed. Dana Da laughed and 
nodded. 

“I could have chosen no better man myself,” 
said he. “I will see that he finds the Sending 
about his path and about his bed.” 

He lay down on the hearth-rug, turned up 
the white of his eyes, shivered all over and be- 
gan to snort. This was Magic, or Opium, or 
the Sending, or all three. When he opened 
his eyes he vowed that the Sending had started 
upon the war-path, and was at that moment 
flying up to the town where Lone Sahib lives. 

“Give me my ten rupees,” said Dana Da, 
wearily, “ and write a letter to Lone Sahib, 
telling him, and all who believe with him, that 
you and a friend are using a power greater 
than theirs. They will see that you are speak- 
ing the truth.” 

He departed unsteadily, with the promise of 
some more rupees if anything came of the 
Sending. 

The Englishman sent a letter to Lone Sahib, 
couched in what he remembered of the ter- 
minology of the Creed. He wrote : “I also, in 
the days of what you held to be my backslid- 


OF DANA DA 


283 


ing, have obtained Enlightenment, and with 
Enlightenment has come Power.” Then he 
grew so deeply mysterious that the recipient of 
the letter could make neither head nor tail of 
it, and was proportionately impressed; for he 
fancied that his friend had become a “fifth- 
rounder.” When a man is a “fifth-rounder” 
he can do more than Slade and Houdin com- 
bined. 

Lone Sahib read the letter in five different 
fashions, and was beginning a sixth interpre- 
tation when his bearer dashed in with the news 
that there was a cat on the bed. Now if there 
was one thing that Lone Sahib hated more than 
another, it was a cat. He scolded the bearer 
for not turning it out of the house. The 
bearer said that he was afraid. All the doors of 
the bedroom had been shut throughout the 
morning, and no real cat could possibly have 
entered the room. He would prefer not to 
meddle with the creature. 

Lone Sahib entered the room gingerly, and 
there, on the pillow of his bed, sprawled and 
whimpered a wee white kitten; not a jump- 
some, frisky little beast, but a slug-like crawler 
with its eyes barely opened and its paws lack- 
ing strength or direction — a kitten that ought 
to have been in a basket with its mamma. Lone 


284 


THE SENDING 


Sahib caught it by the scruff of its neck, 
handed it over to the sweeper to be drowned, 
and fined the bearer four annas. 

That evening, as- he was reading in his 
room, he fancied that he saw something mov- 
ing about on the hearth-rug, outside the circle 
of light from his reading-lamp. When the 
thing began to myowl, he realized that it was a 
kitten — a wee white kitten, nearly blind and 
very miserable. He was seriously angry, and 
spoke bitterly to his bearer, who said there 
was no kitten in the room when he brought in 
the lamp, and real kittens of tender age gener- 
ally had mother-cats in attendance. 

“If the Presence will go out into the veranda 
and listen,” said the bearer, “he will hear no 
cats. How, therefore, can the kitten on the 
bed and the kitten on the hearth-rug be real 
kittens ?” 

Lone Sahib went out to listen, and the 
bearer followed him, but there was no vsound 
of any one mewing for her children. He 
returned to his room, having hurled the kitten 
down the hillside, and wrote out the incidents 
of the day for the benefit of his co-religionists. 
Those people were so absolutely free from 
superstition that they ascribed anything a little 
out of the common to Agencies. As it was 


OF DANA DA 


285 


their business to know all about the Agencies, 
they were on terms of almost indecent famili- 
arity with Manifestations of every kind. Their 
letters dropped from the ceiling — unstamped — 
and Spirits used to squatter up and down their 
staircases all night; but they had never come 
into contact with kittens. Lone Sahib wrote 
out the facts, noting the hour and the minute, 
as every Psychical Observer is bound to do, 
and appending the Englishman’s letter because 
it was the most mysterious document and 
might have had a bearing upon anything in this 
world or next. An outsider would have trans- 
lated all the tangle thus: ‘Took out! You 
laughed at me once, and now I am going to 
make you sit up.” 

Lone Sahib’s co-religionists found that 
meaning in it ; but their translation was refined 
and full of four-syllable words. They held 
a sederunt, and were filled with tremulous 
joy, for, in spite of their familarity with all 
the other worlds and cycles, they had a very 
human awe of things sent from Ghost-land. 
They met in Lone Sahib’s room in shrouded 
and sepulchral gloom, and their conclave was 
broken up by clinking among the photo-frames 
on the mantelpiece. A wee white kitten, nearly 
blind, was looping and writhing itself between 


286 


THE SENDING 


the clock and the candle-sticks. That stopped 
all investigations or doubtings. Here was the 
Manifestation in the flesh. It was, so far as 
could be seen, devoid of purpose, but it was 
a Manifestation of undoubted authenticity. 

They drafted a Round Robin to the English- 
man, the backslider of old days, adjuring him 
in the interests of the Creed to explain whether 
there was any connection between the embodi- 
ment of some Egyptian God or other (I have 
forgotten the name) and his communication. 
They called the kitten Ra, or Toth, or Turn, or 
some thing; and when Lone Sahib confessed 
that the first one had, at his most misguided 
instance, been drowned by the sweeper, they 
said consolingly that in his next life he would 
be a ^‘bounder,” and not even a ‘Tounder” of 
the lowest grade. These words may not be 
quite correct, but they accurately express the 
sense of the house. 

When the Englishman received the Round 
Robin — it came by post — he was startled and 
bewildered. He sent into the bazar for Dana 
Da, who read the letter and laughed. ‘‘That 
is my Sending,” said he. I told you I would 
work well. Now give me another ten rupees.” 

“But what in the world is this gibberish 
about Egyptian Gods ?” asked the Englishman. 


OF DANA DA 


287 


‘‘Cats,” said Dana Da, with a hiccough, for 
he had discovered the Englishman’s whiskey 
bottle. “Cats, and cats, and cats ! Never was 
such a Sending. A hundred of cats. Now 
give me ten more rupees and write as I dic- 
tate.” 

Dana Da’s letter was a curiosity. It bore 
the Englishman’s signature, and hinted at cats 
— at a Sending of Cats. The mere words on 
paper were creepy and uncanny to behold. 

“What have you done, though? said the 
Englishman; “I am as much in the dark as 
ever. Do you mean to say that you can actu- 
ally send this absurd Sending you talk about ?” 

“Judge for yourself,” said Dana Da. “What 
does that letter mean ? In a little time they will 
all be at my feet and yours, and I — O Glory ! — 
will be drugged or drunk all day long.” 

Dana Da knew his people. 

When a man who hates cats wakes up in 
the morning and finds a little squirming kitten 
on his breast, or puts his hands into his ulster- 
pocket and finds a little half-dead kitten where 
his gloves should be, or opens his trunk and 
finds a vile kitten among his dress-shirts, or 
strapped on his saddle-bow and shakes a little 
squawling kitten from its folds when he opens, 
it, or goes out to dinner and finds a little 


288 


THE SENDING 


blind kitten under his chair, or stays at home 
and finds a writhing kitten under the quilt, or 
wriggling among his boots, or hanging, head 
downward, in his tobacco- jar, or being man- 
gled by his terrier in the veranda, — when such 
a man finds one kitten, neither more nor less, 
once a day in a place where no kitten rightly 
could or should be, he is naturally upset. When 
he dare not murder his daily trove because he 
believes it to be Manifestation, an Emissary, 
an Embodiment, half a dozen other things all 
out of the regular course of nature, he is more 
than upset. He is actually distressed. Some 
of Lone Sahib’s co-religionists thought that he 
was a highly favored individual ; but many said 
that if he had treated the first kitten with pro- 
per respect — as suited a Toth-Ra-Tum-Senna- 
cherib Embodiment — all this trouble would 
have been averted. They compared him to the 
Ancient Mariner, but none the less they were 
proud of the Englishman who had sent the 
Manifestation. They did not call it a Sending 
because Icelandic magic was not in their pro- 
gramme. 

After sixteen kittens, that is to say after one 
fortnight, for there were three kittens on the 
first day to impress the fact of the Sending, the 
whole camp was uplifted by a letter — it came 


OF DANA DA 


289 


flying through a window — from the Old Man 
of the Mountains — the Head of all the Creed 
— explaining the Manifestation in the most 
beautiful language and soaking up all the 
credit of it for himself. The Englishman, said 
the letter, was not there at all. He was a back- 
slider without Power or Asceticism, who 
couldn’t even raise a table by force of volition, 
much less project an army of kittens through 
space. The entire arrangement, said the let- 
ter, was strickly orthodox, worked and sanc- 
tioned by the highest Authorities within the 
pale of the Creed. There was great joy at this, 
for some of the weaker brethren seeing that an 
outsider who had been working on independent 
lines could create kittens, whereas their own 
rulers had never gone beyond crockery — and 
broken at best — were showing a desire to 
break line on their own trail. In fact, there 
was the promise of a schism. A second Round 
Robin was drafted to the Englishman, begin- 
ning: “O Scoffer,” and ending with a selec- 
tion of curses from the Rites of Mazraim and 
Memphis and the Commination of Jugana, 
who was a ^Tfth-rounder,” upon whose name 
an unstart ‘"third-rounder” once traded. A 
papal excommunication is a billet-doux com- 
pared to the Commination of Jugana. The 


290 


THE SENDING 


Englishman had been proved, under the hand 
and seal of the Old Man of the Mountains, to 
have appropriated Virtue and pretended to 
have Power which, in reality, belonged only to 
the Supreme Head. Naturally the Round 
Robin did not spare him. 

He handed the letter to Dana Da to trans- 
late into decent English. The effect on Dana 
Da was curious. At first he was furiously 
angry, and then he laughed for five minutes. 

‘T had thought,” he said, ^'that they would 
have come to me. In another week I would 
have shown that I sent the Sending, and they 
would have discrowned the Old Man of the 
Mountains who has sent this Sending of mine. 
Do you do nothing. The time has come for me 
to act. Write as I dictate, and I will put them 
to shame. But give me ten more rupees.” 

At Dana Da’s dictation the Englishman 
wrote nothing less than a formal challenge to 
the Old Man of the Mountains. It wound up : 
**And if this Manifestation be from your hand, 
then let it go forward; but if it be from my 
hand, I will that the Sending shall cease in two 
day’s time. On that day there shall be twelve 
kittens and thenceforward none at all. The 
people shall judge between us.” This was 
signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and 


OF DANA DA 


291 

pentagrams, and a crux ansata, and half a doz- 
en szvGstikGSj and a Triple Tan to his name, 
just to show that he was all he laid claim to be. 

The challenge was read out to the gentlemen 
and ladies, and they remembered then that 
Dana Da had laughed at them some years ago. 
It was officially announced that the Old Man of 
the Mountains would treat the matter with 
contempt; Dana Da being an Independent In- 
vestigator without a single “round” at the back 
of him. But this did not soothe his people. 
They wanted to see a fight. They were very 
human for all their spirituality. Lone Sahib, 
who was really being worn out with kittens, 
submitted meekly to his fate. He felt that he 
was being “kittened to prove the power of 
Dana Da,” as the poet says. 

When the stated day dawned, the shower of 
kittens began. Some were white and some 
were tabby, and all were about the same loath- 
some age. Three were on his hearth-rug 
three in his bath-room, and the other six turned 
up at intervals among the visitors who came 
to see the prophecy break down. Never was 
a more satisfactory Sending. On the next day 
there were no kittens, and the next day and all 
the other days were kittenless and quiet. The 
people murmured and looked to the Old Man 


292 


THE SENDING 


of the Mountains for an explanation. A letter, 
written on a palm-leaf, dropped from the ceil- 
ing, but every one except Lone Sahib felt that 
letters were not what the occasion demanded. 
There should have been cats, there should have 
been cats, — full-grown ones. The letter proved 
conclusively that there had been a hitch in 
the Psychic Current which, colliding with a 
Dual Identity, had interfered with the Percip- 
ient Activity all along the main line. The kit- 
tens were still going on, but owing to some 
failure in the Developing Fluid, they were not 
materialized. The air was thick with letters 
for a few days afterward. Unseen hands 
played Gluck and Beethoven on finger-bowls 
and clock-shades ; but all men felt that Psychic 
Life was a mockery without materialized Kit- 
tens. Even Lone Sahib shouted with the ma- 
jority on this head. Dana Da’s letters were 
very insulting, and if he had then offered to 
lead a new departure, there is no knowing 
what might not have happened. 

But Dana Da was dying of whiskey and 
opium in the Englishman’s godown, and had 
small heart for honors. 

‘They have been put to shame,” said he. 
“Never was such a Sending. It has killed me.” 

“Nonsense,” said the Englishman, “you are 


OF DANA DA 


293 


going to die, Dana Da, and that sort of stuff 
must be left behind. I’ll admit that you have 
made some queer things come about. Tell me 
honestly, now, how was it done?” 

“Give me ten more rupees,” said Dana Da, 
faintly,“ and if I die before I spend them, bury 
them with me.” The silver was counted out 
while Dana Da was fighting with Death. His 
hand closed upon the money and he smiled a 
grim smile. 

“Bend low,” he whispered. The English- 
man bent. 

^^Bunnia — Mission-school — expelled — hox- 
wallah {peddler ) — Ceylon pearl-merchant — all 
mine English education — out-casted, and made 
up name Dana Da — England with American 
thought-reading man and — and — you gave me 
ten rupees several times — I gave the Sahib’s 
bearer two-eight a month for cats — little, little 
cats. I wrote, and he put them about — very 
clever man. Very few kittens now in the bazar. 
Ask Lone Sahib’s sweeper’s wife.” 

So saying, Dana Da gasped and passed away 
into a land where, if all be true, there are no 
materializations and the making of new creeds 
is discouraged. 

But consider the gorgeous simplicity of it 
all! 


ON THE CITY WALL 



ON THE CITY WALL 


Then she let them down by a cord through the win- 
dow; for her house was upon the town-wall, and she 
dwelt upon the wall . — Joshua ii. 15. 

L ALUN is a member of the most ancient 
profession in the world. Lilith was her 
very-great-grand-mamma, and that was before 
the days of Eve as every one knows. In the 
West, people say rude things about Lalun’s 
profession, and write lectures about it, and dis- 
tribute the lectures to young persons in order 
that Morality may be preserved. In the East 
where the profession is hereditary, decending 
from mother to daughter, nobody writes lec- 
tures or takes any notice ; and that is a distinct 
proof of the inability of the East to manage its 
own affairs. 

Lalun’s real husband, for even ladies of La- 
lun’s profession in the East must have hus- 
bands, was a big jujube-tree. Her Mamma, 
who had married a fig-tree, spent ten thousand 
rupees on Lalun’s wedding, which was blessed 
by forty-seven clergymen of Mamma’s church, 
and distributed five thousand rupees in charity 
297 


298 


ON THE CITY WALL 


to the poor. And that was the custom of the 
land. The advantages of having a jujube-tree 
for a husband are obvious. You cannot hurt 
his feelings, and he looks imposing. 

Lalun’s husband stood on the plain outside 
the City walls, and Lalun’s house was upon the 
east wall facing the river. If you fell from the 
broad window-seat you dropped thirty feet 
sheer into the City Ditch. But if you stayed 
where you should and looked forth, you saw 
all the cattle of the City being driven down to 
water, the students of the Government Col- 
lege playing cricket, the high grass and trees 
that fringed the river-bank, the great sand 
bars that ribbed the river, the red tombs of 
dead Emperors beyond the river, and very far 
away through the blue heat-haze, a glint of 
the snows of the Himalayas. 

Wali Dad used to lie in the window-seat for 
hours at a time watching this view. He was a 
young Muhammadan who was suffering acute- 
ly from education of the English variety and 
knew it. His father had sent him to a Mission- 
school to get wisdom, and Wali Dad had ab- 
sorbed more than ever his father or the Mis- 
sionaries intended he should. When his father 
died, Wali Dad was independent and spent two 
years experimenting with the creeds of the 


ON THE CITY WALL 


299 


Earth and reading books that are of no use to 
anybody. 

After he had made an unsuccessful attempt 
to enter the Roman Catholic Church and the 
Presbyterian fold at the same time (the Mis- 
sionaries found him out and called him names, 
but they did not understand his trouble), he 
discovered Lalun on the City wall and became 
the most constant of her few admirers. He 
possessed a head that English artists at home 
would rave over and paint amid impossible sur- 
roundings — a face that female novelists would 
use with delight through nine hundred pages. 
In reality he was only a clean-bred young Mu- 
hammadan, with penciled eyebrows, small-cut 
nostrils, little feet and hands, and a very tired 
look in his eyes. By virtue of his twenty-two 
years he had grown a neat black beard which 
he. stroked with pride and kept delicately 
scented. His life seemed to be divided be- 
tween borrowing books from me and making 
love to Lalun in the window-seat. He com- 
posed songs about her, and some of the songs 
are sung to this day in the City from the 
Street of the Mutton-Butchers to the Copper- 
Smiths' ward. 

One song, the prettiest of all, says that the 
beauty of Lalun was so great that it troubled 


300 


ON THE CITY WALL 


the hearts of the British Government and 
caused them to lose their peace of mind. That 
is the way the song is sung in the streets ; but, 
if you examine it carefully and know the key 
to the explanation, you will find that there are 
three puns in it — on ‘Teauty,” “heart,” and 
“peace of mind,” — so that it runs: “By the 
subtlety of Lalun the administration of the 
Government was troubled and it lost such and 
such a man.” When Wali Dad sings that song 
his eyes glow like hot coals, and Lalun leans 
back among the cushions and throws bunches 
of jasmine-buds at Wali Dad. 

But first it is necessary to explain something 
about the Supreme Government which is above 
all and below all and behind all. Gentlemen 
come from England, spend a few weeks in In- 
dia, walk round this great Sphinx of the 
Plains, and write books upon its ways and its 
work, denouncing or praising it as their own 
ignorance prompts. Consequently all the 
world knows how the Supreme Government 
conducts itself. But no one, not even the Su- 
preme Government, knows everything about 
the administration of the Empire. Year by 
year England sends out fresh drafts for the 
first fighting-line, which is officially called the 
Indian Civil Service. These die, or kill them- 


ON THE CITY WALL 


301 


selves by overwork, or are worried to death or 
broken in health and hope in order that the 
land may be protected from death and sickness, 
famine and war, and may eventually become 
capable of standing alone. It will never stand 
alone, but the idea is a pretty one, and men are 
willing to die for it, and yearly the work of 
pushing and coaxing and scolding and petting 
the country into good living goes forward. If 
an advance be made all credit is. given to the 
native, while the Englishmen stand back and 
wipe their foreheads. If a failure occurs the 
Englishmen step forward and take the blame. 
Overmuch tenderness of this kind has bred a 
strong belief among many natives that the na- 
tive is capable of administering the country, 
and many devout Englishmen believe this also, 
because the theory is stated in beautiful Eng- 
lish with all the latest political color. 

There be other men who, though uneducated, 
see visions and dreams, and they, too, hope 
to administer the country in their own way — - 
that is to say, with a garnish of Red Sauce. 
Such men must exist among two hundred mil- 
lion people, and, if they are not attended to, 
may cause trouble and even break the great idol 
called Pax Britannic, which, as the newspapers 
say, lives between Peshawur and Cape Com- 


302 


ON THE CITY WALL 


orin. Were the Day of Doom to dawn to- 
morrow, you would find the Supreme Govern- 
ment “taking measures to allay popular excite- 
ment” and putting guards upon the graveyards 
that the Dead might troop forth orderly. The 
youngest Civilian would arrest Gabriel on his 
own responsibility if the Archangel could not 
produce a Deputy Commissioner’s permission 
to “make music or other noises” as the license 
says. 

Whence it is easy to see that mere men of 
the flesh who would create a tumult must fare 
badly at the hands of the Supreme Govern- 
ment. And they do. There is no outward sign 
of excitement; there is no confusion; there is 
no knowledge. When due and sufficient rea- 
sons have been given, weighed and approved, 
the machinery moves forward, and the 
dreamer of dreams and the seer of visions is 
gone from his friends and following. He en- 
joys the hospitality of Government; there is 
no restriction upon his movements within cer- 
tain limits; but he must not confer any more 
with his brother dreamers. Once in every six 
months the Supreme Government assures it- 
self that he is well and takes formal acknowl- 
edgment of his existence. No one protests 
against his detention, because the few people 


ON THE CITY WALL 


303 


who know about it are in deadly fear of seem- 
ing to know him; and never a single news- 
paper ‘‘takes up his case” or organizes demon- 
strations on his behalf, because the newspa- 
pers of India have got behind that lying prov- 
erb which says the Pen is mightier than the 
Sword, and can walk delicately. 

So now you know as much as you ought 
about Wali Dad, the educational mixture, and 
the Supreme Government. 

Lalun has not yet been described. She 
would need, so Wali Dad says, a thousand pens 
of gold and ink scented with musk. She has 
been variously compared to the Moon, the Dil 
Sagar Lake, a spotted quail, a gazelle, the Sun 
on the Desert of Kutch, the Dawn, the Stars, 
and the young bamboo. These comparisons 
imply that she is beautiful excedingly accord- 
ing to the native standards, which are practi- 
cally the same as those of the West. Her eyes 
are black and her hair is black, and her eye- 
brows are black as leeches; her mouth is tiny 
and says witty things; her hands are tiny and 
have saved much money ; her feet are tiny and 
have trodden on the naked hearts of many men. 
But, as Wali Dad sings : “Lalun is Lalun, and 
when you have said that, you have only come 
to the Beginnings of Knowledge.” 


304 


ON THE CITY WALL 


The little house on the City wall was just big 
enough to hold Lalun, and her maid, and a 
pussy-cat with a silver collar. A big pink and 
blue cut-glass chandelier hung from the ceiling 
of the reception room. A pretty Nawab had 
given Lalun the horror, and she kept it for 
politeness’ sake. The floor of the room was of 
polished chunam, white as curds. A latticed 
window of carved wood was set in one wall; 
there was a profusion of squabby pluffy cush- 
ions and fat carpets everywhere, and Lalun’s 
silver huqa, studded with turquoises, had a 
special little carpet all to its shining self. Wali 
Dad was nearly as permanent a fixture as the 
chandelier. As I have said, he lay in the win- 
dow-seat and meditated on Life and Death and 
Lalun — specially Lalun. The feet of the young 
men of the City tended to her doorways and 
then — retired, for Lalun was a particular 
maiden, slow of speech, reserved of mind, and 
not in the least inclined to orgies which were 
nearly certain to end in strife. “If I am of no 
value, I am unworthy of this honor,” said La- 
lun. “If I am of value, they are unworthy of 
Me.” And that was a crooked sentence. 

In the long hot nights of latter April and 
May all the City seemed to assemble in Lalun’s 
little white room to smoke and to talk. Shiahs 


ON THE CITY WALL 


305 


of the grimmest and most uncompromising 
persuasion ; Sufis who had lost all belief in the 
Prophet and retained but little in God ; 
wandering Hindu priests passing southward on 
their way to the Central India fairs and other 
affairs ; Pundits in black gowns, with spectacles 
on their noses and undigested wisdom in their 
insides; bearded headmen of the wards; Sikhs 
with all the details of the latest ecclesiastical 
scandal in the Golden Temple; red-eyed priests 
from beyond the Border, looking like trapped 
wolves and talking like ravens; M. A/s of the 
University, very superior and very voluble — all 
these people and more also you might find in 
the white room. Wali Dad lay in the window- 
seat and listened to the talk. 

‘Tt is Lalun’s salon,’^ said Wali Dad to me, 
“and it is electic — is not that the word? Out- 
side of a Freemason’s Lodge I have never seen 
such gatherings. There I dined once with a 
Jew — a Yahoudi!” He spat into the City 
Ditch with apologies for allowing national 
feelings to overcome him. “Though I have 
lost every belief in the world,” said he, “and 
try to be proud of my losing, I cannot help hat- 
ing a Jew. Lalun admits no Jews here.” 

“But what in the world do all these men 
do?” Tasked. 


3o6 on the city WALL 


‘The curse of our country/’ said Wali Dad. 
“They talk. It is like the Athenians — always 
hearing and telling some new thing. Ask the 
Pearl and she will show you how much she 
knows of the news of the City and the Pro- 
vince. Lalun knows everything.” 

“Lalun,” I said at random — she was talking 
to a gentleman of the Kurd persuasion who 
had come in from God-knows-where — “when 
does the 175th Regiment go to Agra?” 

“It does not go at all,” said Lalun, without 
turning her head. “They have ordered the 
1 1 8th to go in its stead. That Regiment goes 
to Lucknow in three months, unless they give 
a fresh order.” 

“That is so,” said Wali Dad without a shade 
of doubt. “Can you, with your telegrams and 
your newspapers, do better? Always hearing 
and telling some new thing,” he went on. “My 
friend, has your God ever smitten a European 
nation for gossiping in the bazars ? India has 
gossiped for centuries — always standing in the 
bazars until the soldiers go by. Therefore — you 
are here to-day instead of starving in your own 
country, and I am not a Muhammadan — I am 
a Product — a Demnition Product. That also I 
owe to you and yours : that I cannot make an 
end to my sentence without quoting from your 


ON THE CITY WALL 


307 


authors.’* He pulled at the huqa and mourned, 
half feelingly, half in earnest, for the shattered 
hopes of his youth. Wali Dad was always 
mourning over something or other — the coun- 
try of which he despaired, or the creed in 
which he had lost faith, or the life of the Eng- 
lish which he could by no means understand. 

Lalun never mourned. She played little 
songs on the sitar, and to hear her sing, 
Peacock, cry again” was always a fresh plea- 
sure. She knew all the songs that have ever 
been sung, from the war-songs of the South 
that make the old men angry with the young 
men and the young men angry with the State, 
to the love-songs of the North where the 
swords whinny-whicker like angry kites in the 
pauses between the kisses, and the Passes fill 
with armed men, and the Lover is torn from 
his Beloved and cries, Ai, Ai, Ai! evermore. 
She knew how to make up tobacco for the huqa 
so that it smelled like the Gates of Paradise and 
wafted you gently through them. She could 
embroider strange things in gold and silver, 
dance softly with the moonlight when it came 
in at the window. Also she knew the hearts of 
men, and the heart of the City, and whose 
wives were faithful and whose untrue, and 
more of the secrets of the Government Officers 


3o8 on the city WALL 


than are good to be set down in this place. 
Nasiban, her maid, said that her jewelry was 
worth ten thousand pounds, and that, some 
night, a thief would enter and murder her for 
its possession; but Lalun said that all the City 
would tear that thief limb from limb, and that 
he, whoever he was, knew it. 

So she took her sitar and sat in the window- 
seat and sang a song of old days that had been 
sung by a girl of her profession in an armed 
camp on the eve of a great battle — the day be- 
fore the Fords of the Jumna ran red and 
Sivaji fled fifty miles to Delhi with a Toorkh 
stallion at his horse’s tail and another I.alun 
on his saddle-bow. It was what men call a 
Mahratta laoneCj and it said : 

Their warrior forces Chimnajee 
Before the Peishwa led, 

The Children of the Sun and Fire 
Behind him turned and fled. 


And the chorus said: 


With them there fought who rides so free 
With sword and turban red, 

The warrior-youth who earns his fee 
At peril of his head. 


“At peril of his head,” said Wali Dad in 
English to me. “Thanks to your Government, 


ON THE CITY WALL 


309 


all our heads are protected, and with the edu- 
cational facilities at my command” — his eyes 
twinkled wickedly — ‘1 might be a distin- 
guished member of the local administration. 
Perhaps, in time, I might even be a member of 
a Legislative Council.” 

‘‘Don’t speak English,” said Lalun, bending 
over her sitar afresh. The chorus went out 
from the City wall to the blackened wall of 
Fort Amara which dominates the City. No 
man knows the precise extent of Fort Amara. 
Three kings built it hundreds of years ago, 
and they say that there are miles of under- 
ground rooms beneath its walls. It is peopled 
with many ghosts, a detachment of Garrison 
Artillery and a Company of Infantry. In its 
prime it held ten thousand men and filled its 
ditches with corpses. 

“At peril of his head,” sang Lalun, again 
and again. 

A head moved on one of the Ramparts — the 
grey head of an old man — and a voice, rough 
as shark-skin on a sword-hilt, sent back the last 
line of the chorus and broke into a song that I 
could not understand, though Lalun and Wali 
Dad listened intently. 

“What is it?” I asked. “Who is it?” 

“A consistent man,” said Wali Dad. “He 


310 


ON THE CITY WALL 


fought you in ’46, when he was a warrior- 
youth; refought you in ’57, and he tried to 
fight you in ’71, but you had learned the trick 
of blowing men from guns too well. Now he 
is old ; but he would still fight if he could.’’ 

‘‘Is he a Wahabi, then? Why should he an- 
swer to a Mahratta laonee if he be Wahabi — or 
Sikh?” said I. 

“I do not know,” said Wali Dad. “He has 
lost perhaps, his religion. Perhaps he wishes 
to be a King. Perhaps he is a King. I do not 
know his name.” 

“That is a lie, Wali Dad. If you know his 
career you must know his name.” 

“That is quite true. I belong to a nation of 
liars. I would rather not tell you his name. 
Think for yourself.” 

Lalun finished her song, pointed to the Fort, 
and said simply: “Khem Singh.” 

“Hm,” said Wali Dad. “If the Pearl 
chooses to tell you the Pearl is a fool.” 

I translated to Lalun, who laughed. “I 
choose to tell what I choose to tell. They kept 
Khem Singh in Burma,” said she. “They kept 
him there for many years until his mind was 
changed in him. So great was the kindness of 
the Government. Finding this, they sent him 
back to his own country that he might look 


ON THE CITY WALL 


311 

upon it before he died. He is an old man, but 
when he looks upon this his country his mem- 
ory will come. Moreover, there be many who 
remember him.” 

'‘He is an Interesting Survival,” said Wali 
Dad, pulling at the huqa. “He returns to a 
country now full of educational and political 
reform, but, as the Pearl says, there are many 
who remember him. He was once a great 
man. There will never be any more great 
men in India. They will all when they are 
boys, go whoring after strange gods, and they 
will become citizens — ‘fellow-citizens’ — ‘illus- 
trious fellow-citizens.’ What is it that the na- 
tive papers call them?” 

Wali Dad seemed to be in a very bad tem- 
per. Lalun looked out of the window and 
smiled into the dust-haze. I went away think- 
ing about Khem Singh who had once made his- 
tory with a thousand followers, and would 
have been a princeling but for the power of the 
Supreme Gk)vernment aforesaid. 

The Senior Captain Commanding Fort 
Amara was away on leave, but the Subaltern, 
his Deputy, had drifted down to the Club 
where I found him and inquired of him 
whether it was really true that a political pris- 
oner had been added to the attractions of the 


312 


ON THE CITY WALL 


Fort. The Subaltern explained at great 
length, for this was the first time that he had 
held Command of the Fort, and his glory lay 
heavy upon him. 

‘‘Yes,” said he, “a man was sent in to me 
about a week ago from down the line — a 
thorough gentleman whoever he is. Of course 
I did all I could for him. He had his two 
servants and some silver cooking-pots, and he 
looked for all the world like a native officer. I 
called him Subadar Sahib ; just as well to be on 
the safe side, y’know. ‘Look here, Subadar 
Sahib,’ I said, you’re handed over to my au- 
thority, and I’m supposed to guard you. Now 
I don’t want to make your life hard, but you 
must make things easy for me. All the Fort is 
at your disposal, from the flagstaff to the dry 
ditch, and I shall be happy to entertain you in 
any way I can, but you mustn’t take advan- 
tage of it. Give me your word that you won’t 
try to escape, Subadar Sahib, and I’ll give you 
my word that you shall have no heavy guard 
put over you.’ I thought the best way of get- 
ting him was by going at him straight, y’know, 
and it was, by Jove! The old man gave me 
his word, and moved about the Fort as con- 
tented as a sick crow. He’s a rummy chap — • 
always asking to be told where he is and what 


ON THE CITY WALL 


313 


the buildings about him are. I had to sign a 
slip of blue paper when he turned up, acknowl- 
edging receipt of his body and all that, and Fm 
responsible, y’know, that he doesn’t get away. 
Queer thing, though, looking after a Johnnie 
old enough to be your grandfather, isn’t it? 
Come to the Fort one of these days and see 
him?” 

For reasons which will appear, I never went 
to the Fort while Khem Singh was then within 
its walls. I knew him only as a grey head seen 
from Lalun’s window — a grey head and a 
harsh voice. But natives told me that, day by 
day, as he looked upon the fair lands round 
Amara, his memory came back to him and, 
with it, the old hatred against the Government 
that had been nearly effaced in far-off Burma. 
So he raged up and down the West face of the 
Fort from morning till noon and from evening 
till the night, devising vain things in his heart, 
and croaking war-songs when Lalun sang on 
the City wall. As he grew more acquainted 
with the Subaltern he unburdened his old heart 
of some of the passions that had withered it. 
''Sahib,” he used to say, tapping his stick 
against the parapet, "when I was a young 
man I was one of twenty thousand horse- 
men who came out of the City and rode 


3H 


ON THE CITY WALL 


round the plain here. Sahib, I was the leader 
of a hundred, then of a thousand, then of 
five thousand, and now!” — he pointed to his 
two servants. “But from the beginning to 
to-day I would cut the throats of all the 
Sahibs in the land if I could. Hold me fast, 
Sahib, lest I get away and return to those who 
would follow me. I forgot them when I was in 
Burma, but now that I am in my own country 
again, I remember everything.” 

“Do you remember that you have given me 
your Honor not to make your tendance a hard 
matter?” said the Subaltern. 

“Yes, to you, only to you. Sahib,” said 
Khem Singh. “To you, because you are of a 
pleasant countenance. If my turn comes 
again. Sahib, I will not hang you not cut your 
throat.” 

“Thank you,” said the Subaltern, gravely, as 
he looked along the line of guns that could 
pound the City to powder in half an hour. 
“Let us go into our own quarters, Khem 
Singh. Come and talk with me after dinner.” 

Khem Singh would sit on his own cushion 
at the Subaltern’s feet, drinking heavy, scented 
anise-seed brandy in great gulps, and telling 
strange stories of Fort Amara, which had been 
a palace in the old days, of Begums and Ranees 


ON THE CITY WALL 


315 


tortured to death — aye, in the very vaulted 
chamber that now served as a Mess-room; 
would tell stories of Sobraon that made the 
Subaltern’s cheeks flush and tingle with pride 
of race, and of the Kuka rising from which so 
much was expected and the foreknowledge of 
which was shared by a hundred thousand souls. 
But he never told tales of ’57 because, as he 
said, he was the Subaltern’s guest, and ’57 is a 
year that no man. Black or White, cares to 
speak of. Once only, when the anise-seed 
brandy had slightly affected his head, he said : 
‘‘Sahib, speaking now of a matter which lay 
between Sobraon and the affair of the Kukas, 
it was ever a wonder to us that you stayed your 
hand at all, and that, having stayed it, you did 
not make the land one prison. Now I hear 
from without that you do great honor to all 
men of our country and by your own hands are 
destroying the Terror of your Name which is 
your strong rock and defence. This is a fool- 
ish thing. Will oil and water mix? Now in 

^57”— 

“I was not born then, Subadar Sahib,” said 
the Subaltern, and Khem Singh reeled to his 
quarters. 

The Subaltern would tell me of these conver- 
sations at the Club, and my desire to see Khem 


3i6 on the city WALL 


Singh increased. But Wali Dad, sitting in the 
window-seat of the house on the City wall, said 
that it would be a cruel thing to do, and Lalun 
pretended that I preferred the society of a griz- 
zled old Sikh to hers. 

'‘Here is tobacco, here is talk, here are many 
friends and all the news of the City, and, above 
all, here is myself. I will tell you stories and 
sing you songs, and Wali Dad will talk his 
English nonsense in your ears. Is that worse 
than watching the caged animal yonder ? Go 
to-morrow then, if you must, but to-day such 
and such an one will be here, and he will speak 
of wonderful things.’’ 

It happened that To-morrow never came, 
and the warm heat of the latter Rains gave 
place to the chill of early October almost before 
I was aware of the flight of the year. The Cap- 
tain commanding the Fort returned from leave 
and took over charge of Khem Singh accord- 
ing to the laws of senioritv. The Captain was 
not a nice man. He called all natives "nig- 
gers,” which besides being extreme bad form, 
shows gross ignorance. 

"What’s the use of telling off two Tommies 
to watch that old nigger?” said he. 

"I fancy it soothes his vanity,” said the Sub- 
altern. "The men are ordered to keep well out 


ON THE CITY WALL 


317 


of his way, but he takes them as a tribute to his 
importance, poor old wretch.” 

won’t have Line men taken off regular 
guards in this way. Put on a couple of Native 
Infantry.” 

‘‘Sikhs?” said the Subaltern, lifting his 
eyebrows. 

“Sikhs, Pathans, Dogras — they’re all alike, 
these black vermin,” and the Captain talked to 
Khem Singh in a manner which hurt that old 
gentleman’s feelings. Fifteen years before, 
when he had been caught for the second time, 
every one looked upon him as a sort of tiger. 
He liked being regarded in this light. But he 
forgot that the world goes forward in fifteen 
years, and many Subalterns are promoted to 
Captaincies. 

The Captain-pig is in charge of the Fort?” 
said Khem Singh to his native guard every 
morning. And the native guard said : “Yes, 
Subadar Sahib,” in deference to his age and his 
air of distinction; but they did not know who 
he was. 

In those days the gathering in Lalun’s little 
white room was always large and talked more 
than before. 

“The Greeks,” said Wali Dad who had been 
borrowing my books, “the inhabitants of the 


3i8 on the city WALL 


city of Athens, where they were always hear- 
ing and telling some new thing, rigorously se- 
cluded their women — who were fools. Hence 
the glorious institution of the heterodox wo- 
men — is it not? — who were amusing and not 
fools. All the Greek philosophers delighted in 
their company. Tell me, my friend, how it 
goes now in Greece and the other places upon 
the Continent of Europe. Are your women- 
folk also fools?” 

‘Wali Dad,” I said, *'you never speak to us 
about your women-folk and we never speak 
about ours to you. That is the bar between 
us.” 

“Yes,” said Wali Dad, “it is curious to think 
that our common meeting-place should be here, 
in the house of a common — how do you call 
herf^* He pointed with the pipe-mouth to La- 
lun. 

“Lalun is nothing but Lalun,” I said, and 
that was perfectly true. “But if you took your 
place in the world, Wali Dad, and gave up 
dreaming dreams” — 

“I might wear an English coat and trouser. 
I might be a leading Muhammadan pleader. I 
might be received even at the Commissioner's 
tennis-parties where the English stand on one 
side and the natives on the other, in order to 


ON THE CITY WALL 


319 


promote social intercourse throughout the Em- 
pire. Heart’s Heart,” said he to Lalun quick- 
ly, “the Sahib says that I ought to quit you.” 

“The Sahib is always talking stupid talk,” 
returned Lalun, with a laugh. “In this house 
I am a Queen and thou art a King. The 
Sahib” — she put her arms above her head and 
thought for a moment — “the Sahib shall be 
our Vizier — thine and mine, Wali Dad — be- 
cause he has said that thou shouldst leave me.” 

Wali Dad laughed immoderatelv and I 
laughed too. “Be it so,” said he. “My friend, 
are you willing to take this lucrative Govern- 
ment appointment? Lalun, what shall his pav 
be?” 

But Lalun began to sing, and for the rest of 
the time there was no hope of getting a sen- 
sible answer from her or Wali Dad. When the 
one stopped, the other began to quote Persian 
poetry with a tripple pun in every other line. 
Some of it was not strictly proper, but it was 
all very funnv, and it only came to an end when 
a fat person in black, with gold pince-nes, sent 
up his name to Lalun, and Wali Dad dragged 
me into the twinkling night to walk in a big 
rose-garden and talk heresies about Religion 
and Governments and a man’s career in life. 

The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festi- 


320 


ON THE CITY WALL 


val of the Muhammadans, was close at hand, 
and the things that Wali Dad said about re- 
ligious fanaticism would have secured his ex- 
pulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim 
sect. There were the rose-bushes round us, the 
stars above us, and from every quarter of the 
City came the boom of the big Mohurrum 
drums. You must know that the City is divid- 
ed in fairly equal proportions between the Hin- 
dus and the Musalmans, and where both creeds 
belong to the fighting races, a big religious 
festival gives ample chance for trouble. When 
they can — that is to say when the authorities 
are weak enough to allow it — the Hindus do 
their best to arrange some minor feast-day of 
their own in time to clash with the period of 
general mourning for the martyrs Hasan and 
Hussain, the heroes of the Mohurrum. Gilt 
and painted paper presentations of their tombs 
are borne with shouting and wailing, music, 
torches, and yells, through the principal thor- 
oughfares of the City, which fakements are 
called tazias. Their passage is rigorously laid 
down beforehand by the Police, and detach- 
ments of Police accompany each tazia, lest the 
Hindus should throw bricks at it and the peace 
of the Queen and the heads of Her loyal sub- 
jects should thereby be broken. Mohurrum 


ON THE CITY WALL 


321 


time in a ‘‘fighting’^ town means anxiety to all 
the officials, because, if a riot breaks out, the 
officials and not the rioters are held responsible. 
The former must foresee everything, and while 
not making their precautions ridiculously 
elaborate, must , see that they are at least ade- 
quate. 

'Tisten to the drums!’’ said Wali Dad. 
“That is the heart of the people — empty and 
making much noise. How, think you, will the 
Mohurrum go this year? I think that there 
will be trouble.” 

He turned down a side-street and left me 
alone with the stars and a sleepy Police patrol. 
Then I went to bed and dreamed that Wali 
Dad had sacked the City and I made Vizier, 
with Lalun’s silver huqa for mark of office. 

All day the Mohurrum drums beat in the 
City, and all day deputations of tearful Hindu 
gentlemen besieged the Deputy Commissioner 
with assurances that they would be murdered 
ere next dawning by the Muhammadans. 
“Which,” said the Deputy Commissioner, in 
confidence to the Head of Police, “is a pretty 
fair indication that the Hindus are going to 
make ’emselves unpleasant. I think we can ar- 
range a little surprise for them. I have given 
the heads of both Creeds fair warning. If they 


322 


ON THE CITY WALL 


choose to disregard it, so much the worse for 
them.” 

There was a large gathering in Lalun’s 
house that night, but of men that I had never 
seen before, if I except the fat gentleman in 
black with the gold pince-nez. Wali Dad lay in 
the window-seat, more bitterly scornful of his 
Faith and its manifestations than I had ever 
known him. Lalun's maid was very busy cut- 
ting up and mixing tobacco for the guests. We 
could hear the thunder of the drums as the pro- 
cessions accompanying each tazia marched to 
the central gathering-place in the plain outside 
the City, preparatory to their triumphant re- 
entry and circuit within the walls. All the 
streets seemed ablaze with torches, and only 
Fort Amara was black and silent. 

When the noise of the drums ceased, no one 
in the white room spoke for a time. “The first 
tazia has moved off,” said Wali Dad, looking 
to the plain. 

“That is very early,” said the man with the 
pince-nez. 

“It is only half-past eight.” The company 
rose and departed. 

“Some of them were men from Ladakh,” 
said Lalun, when the last had gone. “They 
brought me brick-tea such as the Russians sell. 


ON THE CITY WALL 


323 


and a tea-urn from Peshawur. Show me, now, 
how the English Memsahibs make tea.” 

The brick-tea was abominable. When it 
was finished Wali Dad suggested going into 
the streets. ‘T am nearly sure that there will 
be trouble to-night,” he said. “All the City 
thinks so, and Vox Populi is Vox Dei, as the 
Babus say. Now I tell you that at the corner 
of the Padshahi Gate you will find my horse 
all this night if you want to go about and to 
see things. It is a most disgraceful exhibition. 
Where is the pleasure of saying 'Ya Hasan, 
Ya Russian, ' twenty thousand times in a 
night ?” 

All the processions — there were two and 
twenty of them — were now well within the 
City walls. The drums were beating afresh, the 
crowd were howling “Fa Hasan! Ya Rus- 
sian!” and beating their breasts, the brass 
bands were playing their loudest, and at every 
corner where space allowed, Muhammadan 
preachers were telling the lamentable story of 
the death of the Martyrs. It was impossible 
to move except with the crowd, for the streets 
were not more than twenty feet wide. In the 
Hindu quarters the shutters of all the shops 
were up and cross-barred. As the first tazia, a 
gorgeous erection ten feet high, was borne 


324 


ON THE CITY WALL 


aloft on the shoulders of a score of stout men 
into the semi-darkness of the Gully of the 
Horsemen, a brickbat crashed through its talc 
and tinsel sides. 

‘‘Into thy hands, O Lord?’’ murmured Wali 
Dad, profanely, as a yell went up from behind, 
and a native officer of Police jammed his 
horse through the crowd. Another brickbat 
followed, and the tazia staggered and swayed 
where it had stopped. 

“Go on ! In the name of the Sirkar, go for- 
ward!” shouted the Policeman; but there was 
an ugly cracking and splintering of shutters, 
and the crowd halted, with oaths and growl- 
ings, before the house whence the brickbat had 
been thrown. 

Then, without any warning, broke the storm 
— not only in the Gully of the Horsemen, but 
in half a dozen other places. The tazias rocked 
like ships at sea, the long pole-torches dipped 
and rose round them while the men shouted: 
“The Hindus are dishonoring the tazias! 
Strike! Strike! Into their temples for the 
faith !” The six or eight Policemen with each 
tazia drew their batons, and struck as long as 
they could in the hope of forcing the mob for- 
ward, but they were overpowered, and as con- 
tingents of Hindus poured into the streets, the 


ON THE CITY WALL 


325 


fight became general. Half a mile away where 
the tasias were yet untouched the drums and 
the shrieks of "Fa Hasan! Ya Hussain!” con- 
tinued, but not for long. The priests at the 
corners of the streets knocked the legs from the 
bedsteads that supported their pulpits and 
smote for the Faith, while stones fell from the 
silent houses upon friend and foe, and the 
packed streets bellowed: 'Hin! Din! Din!” A 
tazia caught fire, and was dropped for a flam- 
ing barrier between Hindu and Musalman 
at the corner of the Gully. Then the crowd 
surged forward, and Wali Dad drew me close 
to the stone pillar of a well. 

"It was intended from the beginning!” he 
shouted in my ear, with more heat than blank 
unbelief should be guilty of. "The bricks were 
carried up to the houses beforehand. These 
swine of Hindus ! We shall be gutting kine in 
their temples to-night!” 

Tazia after tazia, some burning, others torn 
to pieces, hurried past us and the mob with 
them, howling, shrieking, and striking at the 
house doors in the flight. At last we saw the 
reason of the rush. Hugonin, the Assistant 
District Superintendent of Police, a boy of 
twenty, had got together thirty constables and 
was forcing the crowd through the streets. 


326 ON THE CITY WALL 


His old grey Police-horse showed no sign of 
uneasiness as it was spurred breast-on into the 
crowd, and the long dog-whip with which he 
had armed himself was never still. 

“They know we haven’t enough Police to 
hold ’em,” he cried as he passed me, mopping a 
cut on his face. “They knozv we haven’t! 
Aren’t any of the men from the Club coming 
down to help? Get on, you sons of burned 
fathers!” The dog-whip cracked across the 
writhing backs, and the constables smote 
afresh with baton and gun-butt. With these 
passed the lights and the shouting, and Wali 
Dad began to swear under his breath. From 
Fort Amara shot up a single rocket ; then two 
side by side. It was the signal for troops. 

Petitt, the Deputy Commissioner, covered 
with dust and sweat, but calm and gently smil- 
ing, cantered up the clean-swept street in rear 
of the main body of rioters. “No one killed 
yet,” he shouted. “I’ll keep ’em on the run till 
dawn! Don’t let ’em halt, Hugonin! Trot ’em 
about till the troops come.” 

The science of the defence lay solely in keep- 
ing the mob on the move. If they had breath- 
ing-space they would halt and fire a house, 
and then the work of restoring order would be 
more difficult, to say the least of it. Flames 



Copyright, 1909, by The Edinbargh Society 







ON THE CITY WALL 


327 

have the same effect on a crowd as blood has 
on a wild beast. 

Word had reached the Club and men in 
evening-dress were beginning to show them- 
selves and lend a hand in heading off and 
breaking up the shouting masses with stirrup- 
leathers, whips, or chance-found staves. They 
were not very often attacked, for the rioters 
had sense enough to know that the death of a 
European would not mean one hanging but 
many, and possibly the appearance of the 
thrice-dreaded Artillery. The clamor in the 
City redoubled. The Hindus had descended 
into the streets in real earnest and ere long 
the mob returned. It was a strange sight. 
There were no tazias — only their riven plat- 
forms — and there were no Police. Here and 
there a City dignitary, Hindu or Muhamma- 
dan, was vainly imploring his co-religionists to 
keep quiet and behave themselves — advice for 
which his white beard was pulled. Then a na- 
tive officer of Police, unhorsed but still using 
his spurs with effect, would be borne along, 
warning all the crowd of the danger of insult- 
ing the Government. Everywhere men struck 
aimlessly with sticks, grasping each other by 
the throat, howling and foaming with rage, or 
beat with their bare hands on the doors of the 
houses. 


328 ON THE CITY WALL 


‘Tt is a lucky thing that they are fighting 
with natural weapons,” I said to Wali Dad, 
‘‘else we should have half the City killed.” 

I turned as I spoke and looked at his face. 
His nostrils were distended, his eyes were 
fixed, and he was smiting himself softly on the 
breast. The crowd poured by with renewed 
riot — a gang of Musalmans hard-pressed by 
some hundred Hindu fanatics. Wali Dad left 
my side with an oath, and shouting: “Fa Ha- 
san! Ya Hussain f plunged into the thick of 
the fight where I lost sight of him. 

I fled by a side alley to the Padshahi Gate 
where I found Wali Dad’s house, and thence 
rode to the Fort. Once outside the City wall, 
the tumult sank to a dull roar, very impressive 
under the stars and reflecting great credit on 
the fifty thousand angry able-bodied men who 
were making it. The troops who, at the Dep- 
uty Commissioner’s instance, had been ordered 
to rendezvous quietly near the Fort, showed 
no signs of being impressed. Two companies 
of Native Infantry, a squadron of Native Cav- 
alry and a company of British Infantry were 
kicking their heels in the shadow of the East 
face, waiting for orders to march in. I am 
sorry to say that they were all pleased, unholily 
pleased, at the chance of what they called “a 


ON THE CITY WALL 


329 


little fun.” The senior officers, to be sure, 
grumbled at having been kept out of bed, and 
the English troops pretended to be sulky, but 
there was joy in the hearts of all the subalterns, 
and whispers ran up and down the line : “No 
ball-cartridge — what a beastly shame !” “D’you 
think the beggars will really stand up to us?” 
“ ’Hope I shall meet my money-lender there. I 
owe him more than I can afford.” “Oh, they 
won’t let us even unsheathe swords.” “Hur- 
rah! Up goes the fourth rocket. Fall in, 
there 1” 

The Garrision Artillery, who to the last 
cherished a wild hope that they might be al- 
lowed to bombard the City at a hundred yards’ 
range, lined the parapet above the East gate- 
way and cheered themselves hoarse as the Bri- 
tish Infantry doubled along the road to the 
Main Gate of the City. The Cavalry cantered 
on to the Padshahi Gate, and the Native In- 
fantry marched slowly to the Gate of the 
Butchers. The surprise was intended to be of 
a distinctly unpleasant nature, and to come on 
top of the defeat of the Police who had been 
just able to keep the Muhammadans from fir- 
ing the house of a few leading Hindus. The 
bulk of the riot lay in the north and northwest 
wards. The east and southeast were by this 


'330 


ON THE CITY WALL 


time dark and silent, and I rode hastily to La- 
lun's house for I wished to tell her to send 
some one in search of Wali Dad. The house 
was unlighted, but the door was open, and I 
climbed upstairs in the darkness. One small 
lamp in the white room showed Lalun and her 
maid leaning half out of the window, breath- 
ing heavily and evidently pulling at something 
that refused to come. 

‘‘Thou art late — very late,’^ gasped Lalun, 
without turning her head. “Help us now, O 
Fool, if thou hast not spent thy strength howl- 
ing among the tazias. Pull! Nasiban and I 
can do no more! O Sahib, is it you? The Hin- 
dus have been hunting an old Muhammadan 
round the Ditch with clubs. If they find him 
again they will kill him. Help us to pull him 
up.” 

I put my hands to the long red silk waist- 
cloth that was hanging out of the window, and 
we three pulled and pulled with all the strength 
at our command. There was something very 
heavy at the end, and it swore in an un- 
known tongue as it kicked against the City 
wall. 

“Pull, oh, pull !” said Lalun, at the last. A 
pair of brown hands grasped the window-sill 
and a venerable Muhammadan tumbled upon 


ON THE CITY WALL 


331 


the floor, very much out of breath. His jaws 
were tied up, his turban had fallen over one 
eye, and he was dusty and angry. 

Lalun hid her face in her hands for an in- 
stant and said something about Wali Dad that 
I could not catch. 

Then, to my extreme gratification, she threw 
her arms round my neck and murmured pretty 
things. I was in no haste to stop her ; and 
Nasiban, being a handmaiden of tact, turned to 
the big jewel-chest that stands in the corner of 
the white room and rummaged among the con- 
tents. The Muhammadan sat on the floor and 
glared. 

‘^One service more, Sahib, since thou hast 
come so opportunely,” said Lalun. “Wilt 
thou” — it is very nice to be thou-ed by Lalun — 
“take this old man across the City — the troops 
are everywhere, and they might hurt him for 
he is old — to the Kumharsen Gate? There I 
think he may find a carriage to take him to his 
house. He is a friend of mine, and thou art — 
more than a friend — therefore I ask this.” 

Nasiban bent over the old man, tucked some- 
thing into his belt, and I raised him up, and led 
him into the streets. In crossing from the east 
to the west of the City there was no chance of 
avoiding the troops and the crowd. Long be- 


332 


ON THE CITY WALL 


fore I reached the Gully of the Horsemen I 
heard the shouts of the British Infantry crying 
cheeringly : ‘^Hutt, ye beggars ! Hutt, ye 
devils! Get along! Go forward, there!” 
Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and 
shrieks of pain. The troops were banging the 
bare toes of the mob with their gun-butts — 
for not a bayonet had been fixed. My com- 
panion mumbled and jabbered as we walked on 
until we were carried back by the crowd and 
had to force our way to the troops. I caught 
him by the wrist and felt a bangle there — the 
iron bangle of the Sikhs — but I had no suspic- 
ions, for Lalun had only ten minutes before put 
her arms round me. Thrice we were carried 
back by the crowd, and when we made our 
way past the British Infantry it was to meet 
the Sikh Cavalry driving another mob before 
them with the butts of their lances. 

‘‘What are these dogs?” said the old man. 

“Sikhs of the Cavalry, Father,” I said, and 
we edged our way up the line of horses two 
abreast and found the Deputy Commissioner, 
his helmet smashed on his head, surrounded by 
a knot of men who had come down from the 
Club as amateur constables and had helped the 
Police mightily. 

“We’ll keep ’em on the run till dawn,” said 
Petitt. “Who’s your villainous friend?” 


ON THE CITY WALL 


333 


I had only time to say : *‘The Protection of 
the SirkarT when a fresh crowd flying before 
the Native Infantry carried us a hundred yards 
nearer to the Kumharsen Gate, and Petitt was 
swept away like a shadow. 

‘T do not know — I cannot see — this is all 
new to me!” moaned my companion. “How 
many troops are there in the City?” 

“Perhaps five hundred,” I said. 

“A lakh of men beaten by five hundred — and 
Sikhs among them! Surely, surely, I am an 
old man, but — the Kumharsen Gate is new. 
Who pulled down the stone lions? Where is 
the conduit? Sahib, I am a very old man, 
and, alas, I — I cannot stand.” He dropped in 
the shadow of the Kumharsen Gate where 
there was no disturbance. A fat gentleman 
wearing gold pince-nez came out of the dark- 
ness. 

“You are most kind to bring my old friend,” 
he said, suavely. “He is a landholder of 
Akala. He should not be in a big City when 
there is religious excitement. But I have a 
carriage here. You are quite truly kind. 
Will you help me to put him into the carriage? 
It is very late.” 

We bundled the old man into a hired vic- 
toria that stood close to the gate, and I turned 


334 


ON THE CITY WALL 


back to the house on the City wall. The 
troops were driving the people to and fro, 
while the Police shouted, “To your houses! 
Get to your houses !” and the dog-whip of the 
Assistant District Superintendent cracked re- 
morselessly. Terror-stricken bunnias clung 
to the stirrups of the cavalry, crying that their 
houses had been robbed (which was a lie), and 
the burly Sikh horsemen patted them on the 
shoulder, and bade them return to those 
houses lest a worse thing would happen. Par- 
ties of five or six British soldiers, joining arms, 
swept down the side-gullies, their rifles on 
their backs, stamping, with shouting and song, 
upon the toes of Hindu and Musalman. Never 
was religious enthusiasm more systematically 
squashed ; and never were poor breakers of the 
peace more utterly weary and footsore. They 
were routed out of holes and corners, from be- 
hind well-pillars and byres, and bidden to go 
to their houses. If they had no houses to go 
to, so much the worse for their toes. 

On returning to Lalun’s doors I stumbled 
over a man at the threshold. He was sobbing 
hysterically and his arms flapped like the 
wings of a goose. It was Wali Dad, Agnostic 
and Unbeliever, shoeless, turbanless, and 
frothing at the mouth, the flesh on his chest 


ON THE CITY WALL 


335 


bruised and bleeding from the vehemence with 
which he had smitten himself. A broken 
torch-handle lay by his side, and his quivering 
lips murmured, ''Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!” 
as I stooped over him. 

I pushed him a few steps up the staircase, 
threw a pebble at Lalun’s City window and 
hurried home. 

Most of the streets were very still, and the 
cold wind that comes before the dawn whistled 
down them. In the centre of the Square of 
the Mosque a man was bending over a corpse. 
The skull had been smashed in by gun-butt 
or bamboo-stave. 

‘Tt is expedient that one man should die for 
the people,” said Petitt, grimly, raising the 
shapeless head. “These brutes were beginning 
to show their teeth too much.” 

And from afar we could hear the soldiers 
singing “Two Lovely Black Eyes,” as they 
drove the remnant of the rioters within doors. 

♦ :|c J|e :|c * 

Of course you can guess what happened? I 
was not so clever. When the news went 
abroad that Khem Singh had escaped from the 
Fort, I did not, since I was then living this 
story, not writing it, connect myself, or Lalun, 


336 ON THE CITY WALL 


or the fat gentleman of the gold pince-nez, with 
his disappearance. Nor did it strike me that 
Wali Dad was the man who should have con- 
voyed him across the City, or that Lalun’s 
arms round my neck were put there to hide the 
money that Nasiban gave to Khem Singh, and 
that Lalun had used me and my white face as 
even a better safeguard than Wali Dad who 
proved himself so untrustworthy. All that I 
knew at the time was that, when Fort Amara 
was taken up with the riots, Khem Singh prof- 
ited by the confusion to get away, and that his 
two Sikh guards also escaped. 

But later on I received full enlightenment; 
and so did Khem Singh. He fled to those who 
knew him in the old days, but many of them 
were dead and more were changed, and all 
knew something of the Wrath of the Govern- 
ment. He went to the young men, but the 
glamour of his name had passed away, and 
they were entering native regiments of Gov- 
ernment offices, and Khem Singh could give 
them neither pension, decorations, nor influ- 
ence — nothing but a glorious death with their 
backs to the mouth of a gun. He wrote let- 
ters and made promises, and the letters fell 
into bad hands, and a wholly insignificant sub- 
ordinate officer of Police tracked them down 


ON THE CITY WALL 


337 


and gained promotion thereby. Moreover, 
Khem Singh was old, and anise-seed brandy 
was scarce, and he had left his silver cooking- 
pots in Fort Amara with his nice warm bed- 
ding, and the gentleman with the gold pince- 
nez was told by those who had employed him 
that Khem Singh as a popular leader was not 
worth the money paid. 

‘‘Great is the mercy of these fools of Eng- 
lish!” said Khem Singh when the situation 
was put before him. “I will go back to Fort 
Amara of my own free will and gain honor. 
Give me good clothes to return in.” 

So, at his own time, Khem Singh knocked 
at the wicket-gate of the Fort and walked to 
the Captain and the Subaltern, who were 
nearly grey-headed on account of correspon- 
dence that daily arrived from Simla marked 
“Private.” 

“I have come back. Captain Sahib,” said 
Khem Singh. “Put no more guards over me. 
It is no good out yonder.” 

A week later I saw him for the first time to 
my knowledge, and he made as though there 
were an understanding between us. 

“It was well done. Sahib,” said he, “and 
greatly I admired your astuteness in thus 
boldly facing the troops when I, whom they 


338 ON THE CITY WALL 


would have doubtless torn to pieces, was with 
you. Now there is a man in Fort Ooltagarh 
whom a bold man could with ease help to es- 
cape. This is the position of the Fort as I 
draw it on the sand” — 

But I was thinking how I had become 
Lalun’s Vizier after all. 






















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